It passed directly between the Camanchee Indians and their intended victims, placing between them a barrier which it would have taken days to cut through.  The storm blew for an hour, then it travelled onward in its might, and was lost in the distance.  Whence it came and whither it went none could tell, but far as the eye could see on either hand an avenue a quarter of a mile wide was cut through the forest.  It had levelled everything with the dust; the very grass was beaten flat; the trees were torn, shivered, snapped across, and crushed; and the earth itself in many places was ploughed up and furrowed with deep scars.  The chaos was indescribable, and it is probable that centuries will not quite obliterate the work of that single hour.

While it lasted, Joe and his comrades remained speechless and awe-stricken.  When it passed, no Indians were to be seen.  So our hunters remounted their steeds, and, with feelings of gratitude to God for having delivered them alike from savage foes and from the destructive power of the whirlwind, resumed their journey towards the Mustang Valley.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Anxious fears followed by a joyful surprise—­Safe home at last, and happy hearts.

One fine afternoon, a few weeks after the storm of which we have given an account in the last chapter, old Mrs. Varley was seated beside her own chimney corner in the little cottage by the lake, gazing at the glowing logs with the earnest expression of one whose thoughts were far away.  Her kind face was paler than usual, and her hands rested idly on her knee, grasping the knitting-wires to which was attached a half-finished stocking.

On a stool near to her sat young Marston, the lad to whom, on the day of the shooting-match, Dick Varley had given his old rifle.  The boy had an anxious look about him, as he lifted his eyes from time to time to the widow’s face.

“Did ye say, my boy, that they were all killed?” inquired Mrs. Varley, awaking from her reverie with a deep sigh.

“Every one,” replied Marston.  “Jim Scraggs, who brought the news, said they wos all lying dead with their scalps off.  They wos a party o’ white men.”

Mrs. Varley sighed again, and her face assumed an expression of anxious pain as she thought of her son Dick being exposed to a similar fate.  Mrs. Varley was not given to nervous fears, but as she listened to the boy’s recital of the slaughter of a party of white men, news of which had just reached the valley, her heart sank, and she prayed inwardly to Him who is the husband of the widow that her dear one might be protected from the ruthless hand of the savage.

After a short pause, during which young Marston fidgeted about and looked concerned, as if he had something to say which he would fain leave unsaid, Mrs. Varley continued,—­

“Was it far off where the bloody deed was done?”