Page:Nattie Nesmith (1870).pdf/203

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whirling sleet, fell on the blanket of the young Indian. The sounds from the saw-mill were abroad on the night air, and the mad river roared and seethed on its course. He could see the white, tossing foam of its waves as he stepped upon the little foot-bridge, which trembled and shook with the force of the impetuous currents beating against its timbered supports.

When he was about half way across, something met him,—a small body, which shrank away, and swiftly passed. The moon was just then under a thick cloud, so it was too dark to see the figure; but, as he turned around in the direction in which it went, a faint odor, as of burning cotton, was borne back on the breeze. It was poor Nattie, in her fire-eaten garments. She had fled thus far, through the wilderness, towards the abode of white men. But Augustus Reid had no suspicion of this, and Nattie did not even glance at the person whom she met. She imagined afoe in every living object that she