I said Amy slept. It was a blessed sleep, for it carried her back to childhood’s days; now she was gathering violets with her little brothers on the river’s bank; now she saw her brother’s angel face, and heard her father’s “dear little Amy.” Then time flew by, and she felt her lover’s warm kisses; years seemed moments, and moments years—and still she slept on. Would that she might have slept “that sleep from which none ever wake to weep.” The sun was high in the heavens ere they roused them from their slumbers. The labors of the previous day were exhausting even to the Indian’s strong frame. Some of the wretched captives had passed a sleepless night from fear or excessive weariness; and to some their aching limbs forbade rest. But Amy still lay with her head thrown back, her hands clasped; her marble face and motionless lips rendered still more striking by the profusion of black hair lying disheveled about her. The Indian who advanced to awaken her, paused, as if he shrunk from such a personification of purity. He took hold of her shoulder and shook her; but it seemed as if her senses were bound by death’s icy chains. He struck her a rough blow on the side of her head. She opened her eyes, and tried to rise, but her limbs refused her support, and she fell back. She looked up—her consciousness returned. The sight of the Indian’s face brought back the scenes of that dreadful night, and she trembled like an aspen leaf. But another blow for her tardiness, brought a full conception of her situation, and a flood of tears. Her stiff, feeble movements, the tears running in torrents down her cheeks, were a strange counterpart to the day before. They started; she tried to proceed, but her limbs seemed paralyzed, and her heart died within her. She forgot all around, even her own wretchedness; she remembered only that cottage scene, Richard, and her parents—and she prayed for death. Her sobs were heart-rending, still the cruel savages urged her on. Oh, were there no friendly angels abroad in the earth; was mercy fled, and vengeance dead! At length the Indians, enraged at what they considered the girl’s obstinacy, raised a club to strike her, but Mordaunt, who, perhaps, had enough of humanity to be touched by the spectacle before him, leaped forward, averted the blow, and talking with them a few moments in their own rude, wild tongue, seemed to calm their anger. Soon after this there was a division of the company; Amy and some others, who were incapable of keeping up with the main party, were put together and allowed to proceed more slowly; still she went weeping on—that painful way was traced in tears, and the desert solitudes echoed with her sighs. After about three weeks, the Indians discerned their “smokes” in the distance, and saluted them with shoutings and expressions of great joy. Amy’s peculiar grief had awakened some little pity, even in the bosoms of her savage captors. To this, and the influence of Mordaunt, whose notice she