Here the boy stood in the fullest glare of the
conflagration, and turned his face deliberately on every side of him. The
action showed that he wished to invite all eyes to examine his person. At
this moment the yells ceased in the surrounding covers, proclaiming alike
the common feeling that was awakened by his appearance, and the hazard
that any other would have incurred by exposing himself in that fearful
scene. When this act of exceeding confidence had been performed, the boy
drew a pace nearer to the entrance of the block.
"Comest thou in peace, or is this another device of Indian treachery?"
demanded a voice, through an opening in the door left expressly for the
purposes of parley.
The boy raised the palm of one hand towards the speaker, while he laid the
other with a gesture of confidence on his naked breast.
"Hast aught to offer in behalf of my wife and babes? If gold will buy
their ransom, name thy price."
Miantonimoh was at no loss to comprehend the other's meaning. With the
readiness of one whose faculties had been early schooled in the inventions
of emergencies, he made a gesture that said even more than his figurative
words, as he answered--
"Can a woman of the Pale-faces pass through wood? An Indian arrow is
swifter than the foot of my mother.
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