A noiseless death inflicted upon the squaws, and in such a manner as to leave no trace behind, was the only sure course which the instinct of self-preservation suggested. With men of his profession action follows thought as the bolt follows the flash. Springing upon his victims with the rapidity and power of a tiger, he grasped the throat of each and sprang into the Hockhocking river. The head of the elder squaw he easily thrust under the water, and kept it in that position; but the younger woman powerfully resisted his efforts to submerge her. During the brief struggle she addressed him to his amazement in the English language, though in inarticulate sounds. Relaxing his hold she informed him that she had been made a prisoner ten years before, on Grave Creek Flats, that the Indians in her presence had butchered her mother and two sisters, and that an only brother had been captured with her, but had succeeded on the second night in making his escape, since which time she had never heard of him. During this narrative, White, unobserved by the girl, had released his grip on the throat of the squaw, whose corpse floated slowly down stream, and, directing the girl to follow him, he pushed for the Mount with the greatest speed and energy. Scarcely had they proceeded two hundred yards from the spring before an Indian alarm-cry was heard some distance down the river. A party of warriors returning from a hunt had seen the body of the squaw as it floated past. White and the girl succeeded in reaching the Mount where they found McClelland fully awake to the danger they were in. From his eyrie he had seen parties of warriors strike off in every direction on hearing the shrill note of alarm first sounded by the squaw, and before White and the girl had joined him, twenty warriors had already gained the eastern acclivity of the Mount and were cautiously ascending, keeping their bodies under cover. The scouts soon caught glimpses of their swarthy faces as they glided from tree to tree and from rock to rock, until the hiding place of the luckless two was surrounded and all hope of escape was cut off. The scouts calmly prepared to sell their lives as dearly as they could, but strongly advised the girl to return to the Indians and tell them that she had been captured by scouts. This she refused to do, saying that death among her own people was preferable to captivity such as she had been enduring. "Give me a rifle," she continued, "and I will show you that I can fight as well as die! On this spot will I remain, and here my bones shall bleach with yours! Should either of you escape, you will carry the tidings of my fate to my remaining relatives."