She come to me at
the fort, an' tells as how her folks hed been killed by Injuns, an'
she wanted to git back to Pitt to meet her sweetheart. I was ag'in
her comin' all along, an' fust off I said 'No.' But when I seen
tears in her blue eyes, an' she puts her little hand on mine, I jest
wilted, an' says to Jim Blair, 'She goes.' Wal, jest as might hev
been expected--an' fact is I looked fer it--we wus tackled by
redskins. Somehow, Jim Girty got wind of us hevin' a lass aboard,
an' he ketched up with us jest below here. It's a bad place, called
Shawnee Rock, an' I'll show it to ye termorrer. The renegade, with
his red devils, attacked us thar, an' we had a time gittin' away.
Milly wus shot. She lived fer awhile, a couple of days, an' all the
time wus so patient, an' sweet, an' brave with thet renegade's
bullet in her--fer he shot her when he seen he couldn't capture
her--thet thar wusn't a blame man of us who wouldn't hev died to
grant her prayer, which wus that she could live to onct more see her
lover."
There was a long silence, during which the old frontiersman sat
gazing into the fire with sad eyes.
"We couldn't do nuthin', an' we buried her thar under thet birch,
where she smiled her last sad, sweet smile, an' died. Ever since
then the river has been eatn' away at this island.
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