Toward night, Ella became so fatigued and exhausted by the long day’s march, that it was with the greatest difficulty she could move forward at all; and Girty, taking some compassion on her, ordered the party to halt, until a rough kind of litter could be prepared; on which being seated, she was borne forward by four of the Indians.  At dark they halted at the base of a hill, where they encamped and found a partial shelter from the wind and rain.  At daylight they again resumed their journey; and by four o’clock in the afternoon arrived at the river, which they immediately crossed in their canoes; and, as the water was found in a good stage, did not land until they reached the first bend of the Miami—­the place agreed on for the meeting between Girty and Wild-cat.

As the latter chief and his party had not yet made their appearance, Girty and his band went ashore with their prisoners, and took shelter under one of the largest trees in the vicinity, to await their coming.  Of this expected meeting, the captives as yet knew nothing; and it was of course not without considerable surprise, mingled with a saddened joy, that they observed the approach, some half an hour later, of their friends and enemies.

Ella, on first perceiving their canoes silently advancing up the stream, started up with a cry of joy, which was the next moment saddened by the thought that she was only welcoming her relatives to a miserable doom.  Still it was a joy to know they were yet alive; and as the sinking heart is ever buoyed up with hope, until completely engulfed in the dark billows of despair—­so she could not, or would not, altogether banish the animating feeling, that something might yet interfere to save them all from destruction.  As the canoes touched the shore, Ella sprung forward to greet her adopted mother and father; but her course was suddenly checked by one of the Indian warriors, who, grasping her somewhat roughly by the arm, with a gutteral grunt and fierce gesture of displeasure, pointed her back to her former place.  Ella, downcast and frightened, tremblingly retraced her steps, and could only observe the pale faces and fatigued looks of her relatives and the little girl at a distance; but she saw enough to send a thrill of anguish to her heart; and Girty, who perceived the expressions of agony her sweet features now displayed, at once advanced to her, and, modulating his voice somewhat from its usual tones, said: 

“Grieve not, Ella.  I will endeavor to procure you an interview with your friends.”

The kindness manifested in the tones of the speaker, caused Ella to look up with a start of surprise and hope; and thinking he might perhaps be moved to mercy, by a direct appeal to his better feelings, she replied, energetically, with a flush on her now animated countenance: 

“Oh, sir!  I perceive you are not lost to all feelings of humanity.”  Here the compression of Girty’s lips, and a knitting together of his shaggy brows, warned Ella she was treading on dangerous ground, and she quickly added:  “All of us are liable to err; and there may be circumstances, unknown to others, that force us to be, or seem to be, that which in our hearts we are not; and to do acts which our calm moments of reason tell us are wrong, and which we afterwards sincerely regret.”