Hold out your hands."
She held out both hands obediently. The handle of a tomahawk was
pressed into one, and the muzzle of a double-barreled pistol into
the other. Strength flowed down each hand into her body.
"If the time comes, use them; you are strong, and you know how,"
said the voice. Then she saw the dark figure creeping away.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PURSUIT ON THE RIVER
The story of the frontier is filled with heroines, from the far
days of Hannah Dustin down to the present, and Mary Newton, whom
the unknown figure in the dark had just aroused, is one of them.
It had seemed to her that God himself had deserted her, but at
the last moment he had sent some one. She did not doubt, she
could not doubt, because the bonds had been severed, and there
she lay with a deadly weapon in either hand. The friendly
stranger who had come so silently was gone as he had come, but
she was not helpless now. Like many another frontier woman, she
was naturally lithe and powerful, and, stirred by a great hope,
all her strength had returned for the present.
Nobody who lives in the wilderness can wholly escape
superstition, and Mary Newton began to believe that some
supernatural creature had intervened in her behalf.
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