CHAPTER XXI.
"I am dumb."
Were you the Doctor, and I knew you not!"
During the five or six minutes that elapsed before the youth and Major re-appeared, Judge Temple and the Sheriff, together with most of the volunteers, ascended to the terrace, where the latter begun to express their conjectures of the result, and to recount their individual services in the conflict. But the sight of the peace-makers, ascending the ravine, shut every mouth.
On a rude chair, covered with undressed deerskins, they supported a human being, whom they seated carefully and respectfully in the midst of the assembly. His head was covered by long, smooth locks, of the colour of snow. His dress, which was studiously neat and clean, was composed of such fabrics as none but the wealthiest classes wear, but was threadbare and patched; and on his feet were placed a pair of moccasins, ornamented in the best manner of Indian ingenuity. The outlines of his face were grave and dignified, though his vacant eye, which opened and turned slowly to the faces of those around him in unmeaning looks, too surely announced
