Explore "The Trapper's Daughter" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Red Cedar had seen his son tied up, from the tree where he was concealed. This sight suddenly stopped him; he found himself just over the Comanche camp, in a most perilous situation, as the slightest false movement, by revealing his presence, would be sufficient to destroy him. Sutter and Fray Ambrosio in turn parted the branches and looked down at Nathan, who certainly was far from suspecting that the persons he had left on the previous day were so near him.
In the meanwhile the shadows gradually invaded the clearing, and soon all objects were confounded in the gloom, which was rendered denser by the gleam of the fires lighted from distance to distance, and which shed an uncertain light around. The squatter did not love his son; for he was incapable of feeling affection for more than one person, and it was concentrated on Ellen. Nathan's life or death, regarded in the light of paternal love, was of very slight consequence to him; but in the situation where his unlucky star placed him, he regretted his son, as one regrets a jolly comrade, a bold man and clever marksman -- an individual, in short, who can be relied on in a fight.