For food they depended on jerked venison, and cold corn bread, with which their knapsacks had been well stored. Fire they dared not kindle, and the report of one of their rifles would bring upon them the entire force of the Indians. For drink they depended on some rain water, which still stood in excavations of the rocks, but in a few days this store was exhausted, and M'Clelland and White must abandon their enterprise or find a new supply. To accomplish this most hazardous affair, M'Clelland being the elder, resolved to make the attempt--with his trusty rifle in his grasp, and two canteens strung across his shoulders, he cautiously descended to the prairie, and skirting the hills on the north as much as possible within the hazel thickets, he struck a course for the Hockhocking river. He reached its margin, and turning an abrupt point of a hill, he found a beautiful fountain of limpid water, now known as the Cold Spring, within a few feet of the river. He filled his canteens and returned in safety to his watchful companion. It was now determined to have a fresh supply of water every day, and this duty was to be performed alternately. On one of these occasions, after White had filled his canteens, he sat a few moments, watching the limpid element, as it came gurgling out of the bosom of the earth--the light sound of footsteps caught his practised ear, and upon turning round, he saw two squaws within a few feet of him; these upon turning the jet of the hill had thus suddenly came upon him. The elder squaw gave one of those far-reaching whoops peculiar to the Indians. White at once comprehended his perilous situation--for if the alarm should reach the camp, he and his companion must inevitably perish. Self-preservation impelled him to inflict a noiseless death upon the squaws, and in such a manner as to leave no trace behind. Ever rapid in thought, and prompt in action, he sprang upon his victims with a rapidity and power of a panther, and grasping the throat of each, with one bound he sprang into the river, and rapidly thrust the head of the elder woman under the water, and making stronger efforts to submerge the younger, who, however, powerfully resisted. During the short struggle, the younger female addressed him in his own language, though almost in inarticulate sounds. Releasing his hold, she informed him, that, ten years before, she had been made a prisoner, on Grave Creek flats, and that the Indians, in her presence, butchered her mother and two sisters; and that an only brother had been captured with her, who succeeded on the second night in making his escape; but what had become of him she knew not.