at
direction.

"Nonsense, man!" returned Tom, sharply, "it lies in precisely the
opposite direction. Our adventures have turned your brain, I think.
Come, don't let us lose time. Think of Betty; that poor girl may be
killed if there is another attack. She was slightly wounded last time.
Come!"

Fred looked quickly in his friend's face. It was deeply flushed, and
his eye sparkled with unwonted fire.

"Poor fellow! his case is hopeless; she will never wed him," thought
Fred, but he only said, "I, too, would not waste time, but it seems to
me we shall lose much if we go in that direction. The longer I study
the nature of the ground, and calculate our rate of travelling since we
left the diggings, the more am I convinced that our way lies westward."

"I feel as certain as you do," replied Tom with some asperity, for he
began to chafe under the delay. "But if you are determined to go that
way you must go by yourself, old boy, for I can't afford to waste time
on a wrong road."

"Nay, if you are so sure, I will give in and follow. Lead on," returned
Tom's accommodating friend, with a feeling of mingled surprise and
chagrin.

In less than an hour they reached a part of the rocky ridge before
mentioned, from which they had a magnificent view of the surrounding
country. It was wilderness truly, but such a wilderness of tree and
bush, river and lake, cascade and pool, flowering plant and festooned
shrub, dense thicket and rolling prairie, backed here and there by
cloud-capped hills, as seldom meets the eye or thrills the heart of
traveller, except in alpine lands. Deep pervading silence marked the
hour, for the air was perfectly still, and though the bear, the deer,
the wolf, the fox, and a multitude of wild creatures were revelling
there in the rich enjoyment of natural life, the vast region, as it
were, absorbed and dissipated their voices almost as completely as their
persons, so that it seemed but a grand untenanted solitude, just freshly
laid out by the hand of the wonder-working Creator. Every sheet of
water, from the pool to the lake, reflected an almost cloudless blue,
excepting towards the west, where the sun, by that time beginning to
descend, converted all into sheets of liquid gold.

The two friends paused on the top of a knoll, more to recover breath
than to gaze on the exquisite scene, for they both felt that they were
speeding on a mission that might involve life or death. Fred's
enthusiastic ad