h Alice next morning.

Captain Farnsworth took his fair prisoner straight-way from Hamilton's
presence to a small room connected with a considerable structure in a
distant angle of the stockade. Neither he nor Alice spoke on the way.
With a huge wooden key he unlocked the door and stepped aside for her
to enter. A dim lamp was burning within, its yellowish light flickering
over the scant furniture, which consisted of a comfortable bed, a table
with some books on it, three chairs, a small looking-glass on the wall,
a guitar and some articles of men's clothing hanging here and there. A
heap of dull embers smouldered in the fireplace. Alice did not falter
at the threshold, but promptly entered her prison.

"I hope you can be comfortable," said Farnsworth in a low tone. "It's
the best I can give you."

"Thank you," was the answer spoken quite as if he had handed her a
glass of water or picked up her handkerchief.

He held the door a moment, while she stopped, with her back toward him,
in the middle of the room; then she heard him close and lock it. The
air was almost too warm after her exposure to the biting wind and cold
dashes of rain. She cast off her outer wraps and stood by the
fireplace. At a glance she comprehended that the place was not the one
she had formerly occupied as a prisoner, and that it belonged to a man.
A long rifle stood in a corner, a bullet-pouch and powder-horn hanging
on a projecting hickory ramrod; a heavy fur top-coat lay across one of
the chairs.

Alice felt her situation bitterly enough; but she was not of the stuff
that turns to water at the touch of misfortune. Pioneer women took
hardships as a matter of course, and met calamity with admirable
fortitude. There was no wringing of hands, no frantic wailing, no
hollow, despairing groan. While life lasted hope flourished, even in
most tragic surroundings; and not unfrequently succor came, at the last
verge of destruction, as the fitting reward of unconquerable courage. A
girl like Alice must be accepted in the spirit of her time and
surroundings. She was born amid experiences scarcely credible now, and
bred in an area and an atmosphere of incomparable dangers. Naturally
she accepted conditions of terrible import with a sang froid scarcely
possible to a girl of our day. She did not cry, she did not sink down
helpless when she found herself once more imprisoned with some
uncertain trial before her; but simply knelt and repeated the Lord's
pray