"Don't, Dorothy--don't irritate the savage for nothing at all!" said her husband, who, raising his head at the first remark of the Indian, now saw in his fierce, flashing eyes, angry gestures, and awful contortions of visage, that which boded the sudden fulfillment of his threat: "Don't irritate him, and git murdered for your pains, Dorothy! Why can't you be more quiet?" "Don't talk to me about being quiet, Benjamin Younker, away out here in the woods, a captive to such imps an them thar, with our house all burnt to nothing like, and our cows and sheeps and hosses destructed, and--" Here the speech of the good woman was suddenly cut short by the whizzing of a tomahawk past her head, which slightly grazed her cheek, and lodged in the tree a few feet beyond. Whether it was aimed at her life and missed its mark, or whether it was merely done to frighten her, does not appear; though the manner of the savage, after the weapon was thrown, inclines us to the latter supposition; for instead of rushing upon her with his knife, he walked deliberately to the tree, withdrew the tomahawk, and then turning to her, and brandishing it over her head, said: "Squaw, still be! Speak much, me killum!" Be the design of the Indian what it might, the whole proceeding certainly produced one result, which nothing had ever been known to do before--it awed to silence the tongue of Mrs. Younker, just at a moment when talking would have been such a relief to her overcharged spirit; and merely muttering, in an under tone, "I do jest believe the ripscallious varmint is in arnest, sure enough!" she held her speech for the extraordinary space of half an hour.