Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Her Tragic Fate.djvu/169

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HER TRAGIC FATE.
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preyed upon the woods and brought large amounts of wood away down the Red river; with numberless adventurers and vagabonds, who had fled from the gallows. Even if the western part of the state was in those days the scene of terrible rights between the redskins and the white hunters of the buffalo,—this could not be avoided, and against such dangers the colonists could guard themselves one way or other. When a Magyar is armed and surrounded by his own men, he will not easily yield to violence, and anyone that might presume too much upon his rights, would soon learn that he can be neither bent nor broken. It is also a well known fact that the Magyars are very apt to hold together, and that one neighbor will always be ready to help another.

The majority of the colonists assembled in Little Rock and Claresville, the nearest towns