A
frost fell with a keen icy chill. Mists gathered, and the day did not
break,--it seemed as if it might never dawn again; only a pallid
visibility came gradually upon clouds that had enshrouded all the world.
The earth and the sky were alike indistinguishable; the mountains were
as valleys, the valleys as plains. One might scarcely make shift to see
a hand before the face. Through this white pall, this cloud of nullity,
came ever the dolorous chant, "_Yo-he-ta-wah! Yo-he-ta-weh!
Yo-he-ta-hah! Yo-he-ta-heh!_" as in their grief and poignant bereavement
the ignorant and barbarous Indians called upon the God who made them,
and He who made them savages doubtless heard them.
Creeping out into the invisibility of the clouded day, Abram Varney had
not great fear of detection. The mists that shielded him from view
furthered still his flight, for his footsteps were hardly to be
distinguished amidst the continual dripping of the moisture from the
leaves of the dank autumnal woods. At night he knew the savages would be
most on the alert. They would scarcely suspect his flight in the broad
day. Moreover, their suspicions of his presence here were lulled;
craftily enough he followed after the horsemen who fancied they were
pursuing him--they would scarcely look for their quarry hard on their
own heels.
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