The clouds parted, and, as the floating masses rolled lazily away before a pleasant morning breeze, they were seen lighted up and tinted with a thousand glorious dyes of sunshine.
The appearance of the great luminary was hailed with joy, as the omen of a happier fate than had been heralded by the clouds and storms of evening.

Smiles began to beam from the haggard and care-worn visages of the travellers; the very horses seemed to feel the inspiring influence of the change; and as for Roaring Ralph, the sight of his beautiful benefactress recovering her good looks, and the exulting consciousness that it was _his_ hand which had snatched her from misery and death, produced such a fever of delight in his brain as was only to be allayed by the most extravagant expressions and actions.

He assured her a dozen times over, "he was her dog and her slave, and vowed he would hunt her so many Injun scalps, and steal her such a 'tarnal chance of Shawnee hosses, thar shorld'nt be a gal in all Kentucky should come up to her for stock and glory:" and, finally, not content with making a thousand other promises of an equally extravagant character, and swearing, that, "if she axed it, he would go down on his knees and say his prayers to her," he offered, as soon as he had carried her safely across the river, to "take the backtrack, and lick, single-handed, all the Injun abbregynes that might be following." Indeed, to such a pitch did his enthusiasm run, that, not knowing how otherwise to give vent to his over-charged feelings, he suddenly turned upon his heel, and shaking his fist in the direction whence he had come, as if against the enemy who had caused his benefactress so much distress, he pronounced a formal and emphatic curse upon their whole race, "from the head-chief to the commoner, from the whisky-soaking warrior down to the pan-licking squall-a-baby," all of whom he anathematised with as much originality as fervour of expression; after which, he proceeded, with more sedateness, to resume his post at the head of the travellers, and conduct them onwards on their way.
Another hour was now consumed in diving amid cane-brakes and swamps, to which Roaring Ralph evinced a decidedly greater partiality than to the open forest, in which the travellers had found themselves at the dawn; and in this he seemed to show somewhat more of judgment and discretion than would have been argued from his hair-brained conversation; for the danger of stumbling upon scouting Indians, of which the country now seemed so full, was manifestly greater in the open woods than in the dark and almost unfrequented cane-brakes: and the worthy horse-thief, with all his apparent love of fight, was not at all anxious that the angel of his worship should be alarmed or endangered, while entrusted to his zealous safe-keeping.
But it happened in this case, as it has happened with better and wiser men, that Stackpole's cunning over-reached itself, as was fully shown in the event; and it would have been happier for himself and all if his discretion, instead of plunging him among difficult and almost impassable bogs, where a precious hour was wasted in effecting a mere temporary security and concealment from observation, had taught him the necessity of pushing onwards with all possible speed, so as to leave pursuers, if pursuit should be attempted, far behind.

At the expiration of that hour, so injudiciously wasted, the fugitives issued from the brake, and stepping into a narrow path worn by the feet of bisons, among stunted shrubs and parched grasses, along the face of a lime-stone bed, sparingly scattered over with a similar barren growth, began to wind their way downward into a hollow vale, in which they could hear the murmurs, and perceive the glimmering waters of the river over which they seemed never destined to pass.
"_Thar_', 'tarnal death to me!" roared Ralph, pointing downwards with triumph, "arn't that old Salt now, looking as sweet and liquorish as a whole trough-full of sugar-tree?
We'll just take a dip at him, anngelliferous madam, jist to wash the mud off our shoes; and then, 'tarnal death to me, farewell to old Salt, and the abbregynes together--cock-a-doodle-doo!" With this comfortable assurance, and such encouragement as he could convey in the lustiest gallicantation ever fetched from lungs of man or fowl, the worthy Stackpole, who had slackened his steps, but without stopping while he spoke, turned his face again to the descent; when--as if that war-cry had conjured up enemies from the very air,--a rifle bullet, shot from a bush not six yards off, suddenly whizzed through his hair, scattering a handful of it to the winds; and while a dozen or more were, at the same instant, poured upon other members of the unfortunate party, fourteen or fifteen savages rushed out from their concealment among the grass and bushes, three of whom seized upon the rein of the unhappy Edith, while twice as many sprang upon Captain Forrester, and, before he could raise an arm in defence, bore him to the earth, a victim or a prisoner.
So much the astounded horse-thief saw with his own eyes; but before he could make good any of the numberless promises he had volunteered, during the morning journey, of killing and eating the whole family of North American Indians, or exemplify the unutterable gratitude and devotion he had as often professed to the fair Virginian, four brawny barbarians, one of them rising at his side and from the very bush whence the bullet had been discharged at his head, rushed against him, flourishing their guns and knives, and yelling with transport, "Got you _now_, Cappin Stackpole, steal-hoss! No go steal no hoss no more! roast on great big fire!" "'Tarnal death to me!" roared Stackpole, forgetting everything else in the instinct of self-preservation; and firing his piece at the nearest enemy, he suddenly leaped from the path into the bushes on its lower side, where was a precipitous descent, down which he went rolling and crashing with a velocity almost equal to that of the bullets that were sent after him.

Three of the four assailants immediately darted after in pursuit, and their shouts growing fainter and fainter as they descended, were mingled with the loud yell of victory, now uttered by a dozen savage voices from the hill-side.
It was a victory, indeed, in every sense, complete, almost bloodless, as it seemed, to the assailants, and effected at a moment when the hopes of the travellers were at the highest: and so sudden was the attack, so instantaneous the change from freedom to captivity, so like the juggling transition of a dream the whole catastrophe, that Forrester, although overthrown and bleeding from two several wounds received at the first fire, and wholly in the power of his enemies, who flourished their knives and axes in his face, yelling with exultation, could scarce appreciate his situation, or understand what dreadful misadventure had happened, until his eye, wandering among the dusky arms that grappled him, fell first upon the body of the negro Emperor, hard by, gored by numberless wounds, and trampled by the feet of his slayers, and then upon the apparition, a thousand times more dismal to his eyes, of his kinswoman snatched from her horse and struggling in the arms of her savage captors.
The frenzy with which he was seized at this lamentable sight endowed him with a giant's strength; but it was exerted in vain to free himself from his enemies, all of whom seemed to experience a barbarous delight at his struggles, some encouraging him, with loud laughter and in broken English, to continue them, while others taunted and scolded at him more like shrewish squaws than valiant warriors, assuring him that they were great Shawnee fighting-men, and he a little Long-knife dog, entirely beneath their notice: which expressions, though at variance with all his preconceived notions of the stern gravity of the Indian character, and rather indicative of a roughly jocose than a darkly ferocious spirit, did not prevent their taking the surest means to quiet his exertions and secure their prize, by tying his hands behind him with a thong of buffalo hide, drawn so tight as to inflict the most excruciating pain.