As they slowly ascended the green slope of the mountain that inclosed a side of the valley, they looked back upon ruin and desolation.

The whole black tragedy was being consummated.
They could see the houses in flames, and they knew that the Indian war parties were killing and scalping everywhere.

They knew, too, that other bodies of fugitives, as stricken as their own, were fleeing into the mountains, they scarcely knew whither.
As they paused a few moments and looked back, a great cry burst from the weakest of the women and children.

Then it became a sad and terrible wail, and it was a long time before it ceased.

It was an awful sound, so compounded of despair and woe and of longing for what they had lost that Henry choked, and the tears stood in Paul's eyes.