Black Arrow, the Avenger — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEN’sS STORY. © 97 to keep him now, for our mother’s sake, if not for his own I knew there was something, Ben, that drew me to you when I met you at the settlement, and I felt that I could trust yon, when some of our friends were suspicious. But I don’t un- derstand what Roder meant when he said that you had come and asked for your scalp. I noticed once—the night you slept here—that you—can it be possible ?” “ Did you notice that I had no scalp? _Roder’s men had it, and it is no wonder that they thought my ghost had come to claim it. It is a long story, and too painful for Miss Rose to hear ; but you may know more about it some day. They took my scalp, and left me to die. The scalp is now nailed to the wall in my old hut in the timber; but I lived without it. I don’t know how it was that I lived; I don’t know any thing that happened for a long time; but I know that I was miles from that place when I woke up and found a lot of red-skins around me, some of Ne-cum-wa’s people. ‘They couldn't take my scalp, as there was none for them to take ; but they might have left me to die. I don’t know why it was that they took care of me. It was like my living after what I had gone through with, I reckon—one of ‘those strange things that will happen sometimes, just to make people wonder. But they - did take care of me, and carried me to their lodges. Some of their women-folks nursed me, and I got well and strong. I was a sort of a slave among them for a while ; but I happened to save the life of Ne-cum-wa, one of their chiefs, and then I got chance to show what I could do. They took a liking te» me, and I beeame a chief—a little chief—not a big chief “ Perhaps it was because of living with those wild and re- -vengefal it was just the old Adam that I used to hear the preachers talk about—anyhow, I got to longing to come down here and take my revenge out.of the men who had served me so. I thought about it until I had every thing planned out, and it looked easy. All F needed was help, and Ne-cum-wa was ready to follow me wherever I wanted to go. We took twenty warriors, and hid them in a place that I knew _of, while I looked sbout and did.a.little work on my own hook. I must confess that the warriors were getting right im- ‘patient, and they would have left me, I believe, except Ne-cum- . - conmicldooks.conn