ey never got lost, sorr. We was all three
together from the toime we shtarted till we got back, and it's the love
av God that we ever got back at all. And it's breaking me hearrt, sorr,
to see HIM goin' round with the black looks of everybody upon him, and
he a-twirlin' his moustache and purtending not to mind."

"What do you mean?" said Peter, uneasily.

"Oi mane to be tellin' you what happened, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly.
"When we shtarted out Oi fell three files to the rear, as became me,
so as not to be in the way o' their colloguing, but sorra a bit o'
stragglin' was there, and Oi kept them afore me all the toime. When we
got to Post Oak Bottom the leddy p'ints her whip off to the roight,
and sez she: 'It's a fine bit of turf there, Misther Forsyth,' invitin'
like, and with that she gallops away to the right. The leftenant follys
her, and Oi closed up the rear. So we rides away innoshent like amongst
the trees, me thinkin' only it wor a mighty queer place for manoovrin',
until we seed, just beyond us in the hollow, the smoke of an Injin camp
and a lot of women and childer. And Mrs. Lascelles gets off and goes
to discoursin' and blarneying wid 'em: and Oi sees Mr. Forsyth glancin'
round and lookin' oneasy. Then he goes up and sez something to your
sister, and she won't give him a hearin'. And then he tells her she must
mount and be off. And she turns upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bids
him be off himself. Then he comes to me and sez he, 'Oi don't like the
look o' this, Cassidy,' sez he; 'the woods behind is full of braves,'
sez he. 'Thrue for you, leftenant,' sez Oi, 'it's into a trap that the
leddy hez led us, God save her!' 'Whisht,' he sez, 'take my horse, it's
the strongest. Go beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up into
the saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi'll bring up the rear
and the other horse.' Wid that we changed horses and cantered up to
where she was standing, and he gives the word when she isn't lookin',
and Oi grabs her up--she sthrugglin' like mad but not utterin' a
cry--and Oi lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the braves
made as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the reins of her
horse over the horn of his saddle, and whips out his revolver and houlds
'em back till I've got well away to the trail again. And then they let
fly their arrows, and begorra the next thing a BULLET whizzes by him.
And then he knows they have arrms wid 'em and are 'hostiles,