miration, however, would no doubt have found vent in
fitting words if he had not at the moment recognised a familiar
landmark.

"I knew it!" he cried, eagerly. "Look, Tom, that is Ranger's Hill on
the horizon away to the left. It is very faint from distance, but I
could not mistake its form."

"Nonsense, Fred! you never saw it from this point of view before, and
hills change their shape amazingly from different points of view. Come
along."

"No, I am too certain to dispute the matter any longer. If you will
have it so, we must indeed part here. But oh! Tom, don't be obstinate!
Why, what has come over you, my dear fellow? Don't you see--"

"I see that evening is drawing on, and that we shall be too late.
Good-bye! One friendly helping hand will be better to her than none. I
_know_ I'm right."

Tom hurried away, and poor Fred, after gazing in mingled surprise and
grief at his comrade until he disappeared, turned with a heavy sigh and
went off in the opposite direction.

"Well," he muttered to himself, as he sped along at a pace that might
have made even a red man envious, "we are both of us young and strong,
so that we are well able to hold out for a considerable time on such
light fare as the shrubs of the wilderness produce, and when Tom
discovers his mistake he'll make good use of his long legs to overtake
me. I cannot understand his infatuation. But with God's blessing, all
shall yet be well."

Comforting himself with the last reflection, and offering up a heartfelt
prayer as he pressed on, Fred Westly was soon separated from his friend
by many a mile of wilderness.

Meanwhile Tom Brixton traversed the land with strides not only of
tremendous length, but unusual rapidity. His "infatuation" was not
without its appropriate cause. The physical exertions and sufferings
which the poor fellow had undergone for so long a period, coupled with
the grief, amounting almost to despair, which tormented his brain, had
at last culminated in fever; and the flushed face and glittering eyes,
which his friend had set down to anxiety about Bevan's pretty daughter,
were, in reality, indications of the gathering fires within. So also
was the obstinacy. For it must be admitted that the youth's natural
disposition was tainted with that objectionable quality which, when
fever, drink, or any other cause of madness operates in any man, is apt
to assert itself powerfully.

At first he strode over the ground with terrif