“Yes; three weeks off, I believe.  And Jim Scraggs said that he found a knife that looked like the one wot belonged to—­to—­” the lad hesitated.

“To whom, my boy?  Why don’t ye go on?”

“To your son Dick.”

The widow’s hands dropped by her side, and she would have fallen had not Marston caught her.

“O mother dear, don’t take on like that!” he cried, smoothing down the widow’s hair as her head rested on his breast.

For some time Mrs. Varley suffered the boy to fondle her in silence, while her breast laboured with anxious dread.

“Tell me all,” she said at last, recovering a little.  “Did Jim see—­Dick?”

“No,” answered the boy.  “He looked at all the bodies, but did not find his; so he sent me over here to tell ye that p’r’aps he’s escaped.”

Mrs. Varley breathed more freely, and earnestly thanked God; but her fears soon returned when she thought of his being a prisoner, and recalled the tales of terrible cruelty often related of the savages.

While she was still engaged in closely questioning the lad, Jim Scraggs himself entered the cottage, and endeavoured in a gruff sort of way to reassure the widow.

“Ye see, mistress,” he said, “Dick is an oncommon tough customer, an’ if he could only git fifty yards’ start, there’s not an Injun in the West as could git hold o’ him agin; so don’t be takin’ on.”

“But what if he’s been taken prisoner?” said the widow.

“Ay, that’s jest wot I’ve comed about.  Ye see it’s not onlikely he’s bin took; so about thirty o’ the lads o’ the valley are ready jest now to start away and give the red riptiles chase, an’ I come to tell ye; so keep up heart, mistress.”

With this parting word of comfort, Jim withdrew, and Marston soon followed, leaving the widow to weep and pray in solitude.

Meanwhile an animated scene was going on near the block-house.  Here thirty of the young hunters of the Mustang Valley were assembled, actively engaged in supplying themselves with powder and lead, and tightening their girths, preparatory to setting out in pursuit of the Indians who had murdered the white men; while hundreds of boys and girls, and not a few matrons, crowded round and listened to the conversation, and to the deep threats of vengeance that were uttered ever and anon by the younger men.

Major Hope, too, was among them.  The worthy major, unable to restrain his roving propensities, determined to revisit the Mustang Valley, and had arrived only two days before.

Backwoodsmen’s preparations are usually of the shortest and simplest.  In a few minutes the cavalcade was ready, and away they went towards the prairies, with the bold major at their head.  But their journey was destined to come to an abrupt and unexpected close.  A couple of hours’ gallop brought them to the edge of one of those open plains which sometimes break up the woodland near the verge of the great prairies.  It stretched out like a green lake towards the horizon, on which, just as the band of horsemen reached it, the sun was descending in a blaze of glory.