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The observation is no less true than trite, that no one knows,
till he has tried it, what he can do or endure. And as just as is
the remark in a general application, it is, we apprehend, more
strikingly so when applied to the gentler sex; for, from the
position they occupy in social life, their powers of action or endurance
are so seldom fully put to the test, that they are generally
far less conscious than men of what deeds they might accomplish,
or what degree of suffering they might endure, in emergencies
calculated to call forth the highest energies of their physical and
moral natures. And if there be any disparity between the number
of heroes and heroines in the world, such emergencies as we have
named are only wanting, we believe, to make up any deficiency
that may be found in the latter.

When Miss Haviland ascertained that her too venturous
companion had been intercepted and retaken, in the manner
mentioned in the preceding chapter, she for a moment greatly
hesitated whether to return and yield herself again to her captors,
or persevere in her attempt to escape. But, beginning to suspect
the true source of the present misfortune, which, if her suspicions
were just, pointed only at herself, and thinking that her escape
would soon lead to the voluntary release of her companion, she
quickly decided on the latter alternative, and glided noiselessly
away into the depths of the forest.

After proceeding in a direct course from the camp to such a
distance as should preclude the possibility that any ordinary
sound made in walking through the woods would reach her captors,
unless they were in actual pursuit behind, of which her often
strained senses had as yet given her no evidence, she turned short
to the south, and, in pursuance of the hasty plan formed by herself
and companion at the outset, now made her way, as fast as
the darkness and the usual obstacles of the woods would permit,
towards the road, her only guide being the parallel swells of land,
which, running north and south, rose, as she had luckily noticed

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before dark, in successive lifts up the mountain to the west.
Still hearing no sounds of pursuit, she began to entertain strong
hopes that she should be permitted to reach the road unmolested.
In this, however, she was doomed to be disappointed; for, in a
short time, a cracking, as of dry twigs under the tread of some
one stealthily advancing, arrested her attention, and brought her
to a stand. Fortunately, no part of her dress was sufficiently
light-colored to betray her. And, having nothing to fear from
this, and believing that, by placing herself in close contact with
some natural object, she might still have a good chance to be
passed undetected, she glided to the nearest tree, and, placing
her back to the side opposite to the suspected foe, awaited his
approach in breathless silence. Presently he came up, and,
after pausing a moment within a few yards of her, apparently
to listen and reconnoitre, he passed by so near as to graze
the bark of the tree behind which she stood, and moved carelessly
on some distance before again pausing to repeat his reconnoissance.
She drew a long breath; but, before she dared
move from her stand, the sounds of other approaching feet reached
her ears. And soon two more men, evidently on the same search,
passed by her, at different distances to the east, and, like the first
one, bent their courses northward. After waiting till all sound
of their receding steps had wholly died away, she again moved
forward, and soon had the satisfaction of finding herself in the
road, but a short distance from the spot where, a few hours
before, she and her attendant had been captured. It remained
now to get beyond the tory encampment. Could she be permitted
to pass down the mountain, in the road, but a half mile, she
might then consider the danger mostly over, and proceed on to
the tavern in comparative safety. And, though aware that this
portion of the way might be scarcely less dangerous than any she
had passed over, yet, tempted by the facility with which it could
be accomplished in the road, she resolved to make the attempt,
and accordingly, with a guarded but rapid step, began to move
down the sloping way before her. But she had proceeded but a
short distance, when she was startled by the loud report of fire-arms
in the direction of the tory encampment, which, as already
described, were, just at that moment, being discharged at the
escaping canoe. While pausing in doubt at the meaning of this
unexpected outbreak, the random firing of Woodburn's party,
which we noted as soon following that of the tories, now burst
from the forest a little before her on the left, and greatly increased
her perplexity. Suddenly conceiving the idea, from

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these circumstances, that the tories had been assailed in their
rear, and were now retreating towards her, and this notion being
the next moment confirmed by the glimpses she caught of a dark
form emerging from the bushes on the left, whom she mistook
for a foe, she hastily turned and fled, in agitation and alarm, into
the opposite forest bordering the road on the south, having thus
approached within a few rods of the very men who were in
search of her, and thus unconsciously eluded their friendly grasp.
Though intending soon to turn her course eastward, so as to
come out again into the road at such a point as should place her
beyond any danger of a recapture, yet, urged by her fears lest
her foes should cross the road and overtake her, she pressed on
so far into the depths of the woods, that when she paused to change
her course, she became confused and doubtful respecting the
direction she should take to regain the road in the manner she
had proposed. She had now no further knowledge of the make
of the land, or the situation of the hills, by which she could be
guided. But at length, fixing on a course which she thought most
likely to be the right one, she again set forward, slowly picking
her way through the swampy and tangled tract of forest into
which she seemed now to have entered. In this manner she
pursued her dubious course onward nearly an hour, every moment
expecting that the next would bring her out into the road.
At length she fell in with a small stream, which she rightly
judged to be one of the brooks running into Black River, and
which, from what she knew of the course of that river, she supposed
would lead nearly in the direction she sought to go. But
on stooping down to feel the current, she, to her great surprise,
found it running in a course directly opposite from what she
expected. Scarcely knowing now which way to direct her steps,
she passed over the stream, and, with a sense of desolation,
growing out of the thought that she was lost in the depths of the
wilderness, which she had never before experienced, wandered
on, and on, for several of the successive hours of that dark and
dismal night. At last she came to the top of a high swell,
where, the new aspect presented in the slope of the forest before
her naturally causing her to pause, she dropped down upon an
old mossy log to rest her worn and wearied frame, and try to
collect her confused and scattered faculties. While here endeavoring
to rally her sinking spirits, and compose her thoughts
so as to look more coolly on her situation, she began to discern,
through the openings of the foliage, the dark outlines of a high
mountain, rising, at the distance of two or three miles, directly

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in front of her. It now occurred to her that, like other persons
lost in the woods, of whom she had heard, she might have been,
all this time, wandering in a circle, and that the mountain before
her might be the very one she supposed she had left far behind
her, west of the tory encampment. If this supposition should
prove correct, the long-sought road must lie somewhere between
her and the mountain in view, and a little more perseverance in
that direction would consequently put an end to those perplexities
which were now becoming more painful and dread than any
sensations she had experienced from the pursuit of her enemies.
Encouraged by the gleam of hope which this thought imparted
to her almost despairing mind, she started up, and again nerved
herself for the task of meeting the many difficulties which she
knew, at the best, yet remained to be overcome. It had, by
this time, in consequence of a scattering of the clouds, or the
rising of a waning moon, become perceptibly lighter, and, for the
next hour, her progress was much more direct and easy. By
this time, she came to a spot in the forest which was sufficiently
open to give her another and fairer view of the mountain she
had been approaching. She looked upon its dark sides a moment,
and the pleasant delusion under which she had been laboring
wholly vanished from her mind. She saw it could not be
the mountain she had hoped to find it, nor indeed any she had
ever seen; and she again gave herself up as lost, perhaps,
irretrievably lost, far away and deep in the dark recesses of a
howling wilderness, from which she might never be extricated.
And yet her usual firmness did not wholly forsake her. “Is not
your life of more value than many sparrows in the sight of Him
who careth for all?” she mentally exclaimed; and she was
calmed and comforted by the ready affirmative which her faith
responded.

While casting about her in doubt respecting the next step to be
taken, she discovered traces of what was evidently once an imperfect
road, or path, which seemed to extend through a partial
opening towards the mountain. Thinking it might possibly lead
to some human habitation, or at least to some place preferable to
the open forest for rest and shelter till the return of daylight, she
resolved to follow it. As she proceeded on, she began to detect
marks of the woodman's or hunter's axe in the trees, here entirely
cut down, and there girdled, or denuded of their bark as
high as the hand could reach. These indications of the former
presence of men appeared to grow more frequent as she went
on; and at length she came out into a small opening in the forest,

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in the midst of which stood a roughly-constructed log-house, or
shanty, with a regularly-formed bark roof still standing. The
remains of smaller and less durable shanties were also visible in
the vicinity of the former.*

With a cautious and hesitating step, Miss Haviland drew
near to this rude structure, and at once perceived, by the appearance
of the unguarded loop-hole window, and the open entrance,
before which the untrodden wild weeds were growing, that it
was untenanted. Approaching still nearer, and peering into the
window, she discovered, in one corner of the deserted apartment,
a comfortable-looking bed, composed of branches of the hemlock,
which she rightly concluded had been collected and used
by hunters, who occasionally made the place their quarters for
the night. Immediately concluding to avail herself of the advantages
which this shelter and primitive couch seemed to promise
for obtaining the rest her exhausted system so much needed, she
entered, and, throwing herself down on the soft and yielding
boughs, soon surrendered herself to the influence of the grateful
repose, and fell asleep. She was soon, however, awakened —
by what she knew not, unless by the feeling of uneasiness and
apprehension, by which she now found herself unaccountably
agitated. She had heard, or read, of those mysterious intimations,
by which, it is said, we sometimes instinctively become apprised
of impending danger, when there is no apparent cause for apprehension,
and when reason utters no warning. If such instances
ever in reality occurred, this might be one of them; or
the impression might have been unconsciously received from
actual sounds, which came from foes now secretly lurking near,
and which, as it is known often to be the case, had fallen on her
slumbering ear, and disturbed and troubled, without fully awakening
her. But whatever the cause of the strange foreboding,
the effect soon became too strong and exciting to permit her
longer to remain passive. And she arose to examine the apartment,
and see what precautions could be taken to render it more
safe against the intrusion of enemies, whether they should come
in the shape of men or wild beasts. On approaching the entrance,
she discovered, standing by the side of it against the wall,

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

a sort of rough door made of long cuts of thick bark, confined
by withes to two cross-pieces, and intended, evidently, as there
were no contrivances for hanging it, to be set up against the
entrance on the inside as a barrier against the cold, or the unwelcome
intrusion of any thing from without. But it had become
so water-soaked and heavy, and the end on which it stood so
firmly set in the ground, that she found, on making the attempt,
her strength unequal to the task of removing it. And she turned
away to look for other means of protecting herself from danger.
Casting her eyes upward, she perceived, lying loose on the
beams, or rather poles, extending across the room above, several
long pieces of bark, which had been left there, probably, when
the roof, of the same material, was constructed. And it immediately
occurred to her, that, if she could mount this loft, she might
so dispose of herself there as to escape the observation of any
human intruders, and, at the same time, be out of reach of any
wild beasts that should enter the room below. Accordingly,
going to one corner, she began to mount by stepping on the projecting
sides of the logs in the two converging walls, and soon
succeeded in reaching the loft, and forming, from the bark, a
piece of flooring sufficiently strong and broad to bear her weight
and screen her person from observation. Upon this she extended
herself, face downwards, with her eyes placed to a small aperture,
to enable her to see what might happen in the room below, and
silently, but with highly excited expectation, awaited the event.
But what event did she expect? She could not tell; and yet
she was wholly unable to divest herself of the continually intruding
idea that something fearful was about to occur; and
impelled by the singular apprehension, she could not help listening
for sounds which might herald the approaching evil. For
some time, however, no sounds reached her ears, except those
low, mingled murmurs which are peculiar to the forest in the
stillness of night. But at length her quickened organs were
greeted by some noise which she knew was not a fancied one;
and the next moment the sound of human footsteps became distinctly
audible. Presently she heard voices at the door, and then
saw two dark forms cautiously entering the room below. After
walking around the apartment and thrusting the muzzles of their
guns into corners, with the apparent purpose of ascertaining whether
any one was concealed within, they approached the pile of boughs
before described, and gave vent to their satisfaction at finding so
good a bed, in a short, guttural ugh! which proclaimed them,
to the trembling listener above, to be Indians, and of those,

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doubtless, who had been sent out in pursuit of her. They then
proceeded to draw up the old door and barricade the entrance;
after which they set their guns against the wall, and camped
down on the bed in the corner.

It would be difficult to describe the sensations with which the
hapless girl witnessed what had occurred; and these, with the
fear of what might still be in store for her, nearly filled the
measure of her distress and perplexity; for although she had
thus far escaped observation, and although she soon had the
satisfaction of knowing, by the heavy and measured breathing
which reached her ears, that her foes had sunk into a deep sleep,
yet how was she, even now, to avoid falling into their merciless
hands? Should she attempt to descend and escape through the
window, could she effect her purpose without being heard and
detected? She feared not. And should she remain in her
present situation till daylight, would her terrible visitors then
awaken and depart without discovering her? This alternative
appeared to her even less promising than the other. And yet
one of the two courses must be adopted. Which should it be?
While anxiously reflecting on the subject, fresh noises in the
woods arrested her attention. These were also the sounds of
footsteps, but evidently not those of any human prowler. With
a light, quick pat, pat, pat, the animal came up to the door,
paused, and snuffed the air through the crevices. He then
moved along to the window, reared himself on his hind legs,
thrust in his nose, and after giving two or three quick, eager
snuffs there also, withdrew, and trotted off, at a moderate pace,
a short distance into the forest, where he appeared to come to a
sudden halt. The next moment, the long, unearthly howl of a
wolf rose shrill and tremulous from the spot, and died slowly away,
in strange, wild cadences, among the echoing mountains around.
Sabrey instinctively shuddered at the fearful sound, but instantly
turned her attention to the sleeping Indians, whom she expected
to hear rousing up and rushing out with their guns after the insidious
prowler. But they, to her surprise, snored on, unconscious
of the danger. The howl was soon repeated, when short,
faint responses, in the same shrill, savage modulations, became
audible in every direction in the surrounding forest. These answering
cries, growing more distinct and loud every moment, in
their evident approach to the spot where the first signal howl
was given, now fully apprised the agitated listener of the fearful
character of the scene which was likely soon to occur beneath
or around her. In an incredibly short space of time, the

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

gathering troop of famished monsters seemed to be arriving and arranging
themselves under their invoking leader, to be led on to
the promised prey. And soon the trampling of multitudinous
feet evinced that they were in motion and cautiously advancing
towards the house. The next moment, they all appeared to have
assembled under the window, and paused, as if to plan the mode
of attack. After a brief interval, in which no sounds could be
distinguished but the low, suppressed snuffing of the troop for
the scented prey, a large wolf leaped up into the narrow aperture,
paused a second, and then quickly thrusting his balanced body forward,
dropped noiselessly down on the ground floor within. Another,
and another, and another, followed in rapid succession, till more
than half a score of the gaunt, grim monsters had landed inside,
and silently arranged themselves in a row before the bed of their
intended victims, who still strangely slept on. One more fearful
pause succeeded, in which the greedy band seemed to be eagerly
eyeing the fated sleepers, and marking out portions of their
bodies for the deadly gripe; when suddenly springing forward,
they all fiercely pounced upon the victims, and, with the seeming
noise of a thousand wrangling fiends, mingled with the sharp,
short, half-stifled screeches of human agony, that were heard in
the hideous din, seized, throttled, and tore them, limb from limb,
to pieces, and bore off the dissevered parts, munching and
snarling, to different corners of the room. The noise now for a
short time subsided, and nothing was heard but the low, broken
growls of the cannibal troop, as they busily craunched the bones,
and tore the flesh on which they were making their horrid feast.
Then followed the fierce and noisy encounters for the decreasing
fragments, till none were left worth contending for.

At this juncture, two of the half-glutted but still ravenous
gang, relinquishing the well-picked bones on which they had been
laboring, rose, and, advancing into the middle of the room, stood
a moment listlessly viewing the operations of the rest; when they
suddenly started, and, turning slowly round and round, began
busily to snuff the air, and throw their noses upward in search
of some fresh game that appeared now to have struck their keen
olfactories. The affrighted maiden, who had been witnessing
this hideous scene from her hitherto unsuspected concealment
above, with blood curdling in horror at the sights and sounds that
reached her recoiling senses, now shuddered in fresh alarm; for
she but too well understood what this new and fearfully-significant
movement of the wolves portended. And, instinctively withdrawing
her face from her loop-hole of observation, she hastily

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

drew herself up in the middle of her frail support, so as to be as
far as possible out of the reach of her expected assailants. But
they at once detected the slight sounds occasioned by her movement,
and, now guided by two senses instead of one, instantly
began to gnash their teeth, and, with wild howls, to leap upward
after their newly-discovered prey. And although her position
was more than seven feet from the ground, — a height which, it
might be supposed, could not have been reached by this class of animals
in a perpendicular leap, — yet so desperate had the present
gang become by the taste of human blood, that they soon, in their
determined and constantly-repeated efforts, began to strike and
seize the beams with their teeth, by which they would hang suspended
a moment, and then drop back again to the ground for
another trial. The terrified maiden now gave herself up as lost,
and tried to quell the tumult of her frenzied feelings, that she
might meet her approaching fate, as dreadful as it was, with
calmness and resignation. But the terrific noise of her maddened
assailants, as they leaped up, snapping, snarling, and howling, in
demoniac chorus, and made nearer and nearer approaches every
moment to her person, once more aroused her natural instinct for
self-preservation; and she arose, and, standing upon her feet,
involuntarily bent over one end of her support to catch a view
of what was passing below.

In withdrawing her shrinking gaze from the fiercely upheaving
heads and fiery eyeballs which there greeted her, she espied the
guns of the Indians still standing against the wall, almost directly
beneath her, with the muzzles extending upward within the reach
of her arm. With the rapid process of thought which danger is
known often to beget, a new plan of deliverance, suggested by
the discovery just made, was instantly formed and digested in
her mind. And in its pursuance, she drew a white handkerchief
from her pocket, and, hastily folding it together, threw it down to
the farthest corner of the room below. As she had anticipated,
the whole gang rushed after it. And instantly seizing the opportunity
thus afforded to execute her design, she hastily balanced
herself on the edge of the bark the most nearly over the guns,
reached down her arm, grasped one of the muzzles, and drew
up the heavy weapon, just in time to escape the baffled brutes as
they came bounding back, with redoubled howls of rage and disappointment,
to the spot. Too much accustomed, in the new
settlement in which she had been mostly reared, to the sight and
even handling of fire-arms not to know how to use them, she
cocked the piece, and, again advancing to the edge of her

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

platform, pointed down into the thickest of the infuriated pack, and
fired. One wild, piercing yelp followed the deafening explosion;
and, the next instant, all the survivors of the hushed and frightened
gang were heard scrambling through the window, and scattering
and fleeing off with desperate speed into the surrounding
forest. With the last sounds of the retreating steps of the wolves,
and with the relief which a returning sense of safety brought to
the over-wrought feelings of the maiden, all her strength gave
way, and, sinking down, weak and helpless as an infant, she
sobbed out, in the broken murmurs of an overflowing heart, her
gratitude to Heaven for her deliverance from the horrid death
from which she had so narrowly escaped. For a while she could
only tremble and weep; but at length the violence of her emotions
began gradually to subside, exhausted nature would be
cheated no longer, and she sunk into slumber, too sound, happily,
to permit her to dream over the fearful scenes of the past.

When she awoke, it was broad daylight, and all was quiet within,
while without the birds were chanting their morning melodies.
At first she could scarcely believe that the scene she had passed
through was not the distempered imaginings of some frightful dream.
But there, on the blood-stained floor beneath her, lay the carcass
of a dead wolf, and the scattered bones of the slain Indians, to
attest the dreadful reality. Hastening down from the loft into
the room, and averting her eyes from the revolting spectacle, she
hurried forward with a shudder to the door, effected an opening
sufficient for her egress, and rushed out into the open air, of
which she now drew a long, grateful inhalation, more expressive
than words of the deep sense of inward pleasure she experienced
in being freed from this den of horrors.

Believing that, by the advantages daylight would now afford
her, she might be able to retrace her way to the road, she immediately
sought out and entered the old path by which she had
approached the cabin; and this serving to indicate the general
course she must pursue to accomplish her purpose, she followed
it back to the end, and then passed on through the forest in the
same direction. She had proceeded but a short distance, however,
before she was startled by the unexpected appearance of a
man advancing through the thick intervening undergrowth directly
towards her. As she was about to strike out obliquely into the
forest to avoid him, her steps were arrested by his voice calling
out to her.

“Don't be alarmed at a friend, young lady,” he said, in a plausible
manner, as he came forward and stopped at a respectful

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distance — “don't be alarmed at my appearance, at all; for you are
the one, I take it, that we are searching for. It is Miss Haviland,
is it not?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the latter, looking doubtfully at the man,
whom she thought she had somewhere before seen — “yes, that
is my name; but as there may be both friends and foes out in
search of me, you will excuse me for saying that I do not know
to which of these you belong.”

“True, true,” said the other, in a wheedling tone — “true; I
don't blame you for being a little cautious. So I must tell you
that, living in these parts, and being acquainted with Captain
Woodburn, I volunteered, when I heard you were lost last night,
to go with the rest in search of you. And being now so lucky
as to find you, I will conduct you out to Coffin's — four or five
miles from this, I suppose — where your friends are anxiously
waiting to see or get word of you.”

Although our heroine was not exactly pleased with the manner
and countenance of the man, yet the charm of the name of
Woodburn, to whom he had so artfully referred, restored her
confidence, and she at once and thankfully accepted of his proffered
guidance, little suspecting that she had yielded herself to
the most subtle of her foes — the deceitful and treacherous David
Redding!

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