"
"But what if he's been taken prisoner?" said the widow.
"Ay, that's jest wot I've comed about. Ye see it's not onlikely he's
bin took; so about thirty o' the lads o' the valley are ready jest now
to start away and give the red riptiles chase, an' I come to tell ye;
so keep up heart, mistress."
With this parting word of comfort, Jim withdrew, and Marston soon
followed, leaving the widow to weep and pray in solitude.
Meanwhile an animated scene was going on near the block-house. Here
thirty of the young hunters of the Mustang Valley were assembled,
actively engaged in supplying themselves with powder and lead, and
tightening their girths, preparatory to setting out in pursuit of the
Indians who had murdered the white men; while hundreds of boys and
girls, and not a few matrons, crowded round and listened to the
conversation, and to the deep threats of vengeance that were uttered
ever and anon by the younger men.
Major Hope, too, was among them. The worthy major, unable to restrain
his roving propensities, determined to revisit the Mustang Valley, and
had arrived only two days before.
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