arm; her mouth was gagged, and something thrown over her head; she was then borne rapidly down the bank of the river, and laid in a canoe.  She heard no voices, and the swift motion of the canoe rendered her unconscious.  How long the journey lasted she knew not.  At length she found herself, on recovering from partial insensibility, in a rude hut, with a frightful-looking Indian squaw bathing her hands, while another held a blazing torch of pine above her head.  Their hideous faces, frightful as the imagery of a dream, scared Alice, and she fainted again.

The injuries which Kenneth Gordon had suffered from the savages made him shudder at the name of Indian—­and neither he nor his family ever held converse with those who traded in the village.  Metea, a chief of the Menomene Indians, in his frequent trading expeditions to the village, had often seen Alice, and became enamoured of the village beauty.  He had long watched an opportunity of stealing her, and bearing her away to his tribe, where he made no doubt of winning her love.  When Alice recovered the squaws left her, and Metea entered the hut; he commenced by telling her of the great honour in being allowed to share the hut of Metea, a “brave” whose bow was always strung, whose tomahawk never missed its blow, and whose scalps were as numerous as the stars in the path-way of ghosts; and he pointed to the grisly trophies hung in the smoke of the cabin.  He concluded by giving her furs and strings of beads, with which the squaws decorated her, and the next morning the trembling girl was led from the hut, and lifted into a circle formed of the warriors of the tribe.  Here Metea stood forth and declared his deeds of bravery, and asked their consent for “the flower of the white nation” to be his bride.  When he had finished, a young warrior, whose light and graceful limbs might well have been a sculptor’s model, stood forward to speak.  He was dressed in the richest Indian costume, and his scalping knife and beaded moccasins glittered in the sunshine.  His features bore an expression very different from the others.  Neither malice nor cunning lurked in his full dark eye, but a calm and majestic melancholy reposed on his high and smooth brow, and was diffused over his whole mein; and, in the clear tones of his voice, “Brothers,” said he to the warriors, “we have buried the hatchet with the white nation—­it is very deep beneath the earth—­shall we dig it because Metea scorns the women of his tribe, because he has stolen ‘the flower of the white nation?’ Let her be restored to her people, lest her chiefs come to claim her, and Metea lives to disgrace the brave warriors of the woods?” He sat down, and the circle rising, said, “Our brother speaks well, but Metea is very brave.”  It was decided that Alice should remain.