ed only by the rude floor of the room
above.

But in all the medley her feminine eye did not fail to perceive high up
and withdrawn from ordinary notice, a lady's silk riding-mask such as
was used in sophisticated regions at the period to protect the
complexion on a journey,--dainty, fresh, of a garnet hue with a black
lace frill, evidently treasured, yet expressively null. And this was
doubtless all that was left of some spent romance, a mere memory in the
rude military life on the far frontier, barely suggesting a fair and
distant face and eyes that looked forth on scenes more suave.

With a sentiment of deep respect Odalie observed the six or eight
arm-chairs of a rude and untoward manufacture, which were ranged about
the hearth, draped, however, to real luxury by wolfskins, for the early
settlers chiefly affected rough stools or billets of wood as seats, or
benches made of puncheons with a couple of auger-holes at each end,
through which four stout sticks were adjusted for legs, which were
indeed often of unequal length and gave the unquiet juvenile pioneer of
that day a peculiarly acceptable opportunity for cheerily jouncing to
and fro. There were several of these benches, too, but placed back
against the walls, for the purpose she supposed of affording seats when
the festive board was spread at length. An absolute board, this
figurative expression implied, for the stern fact set forth a half dozen
puncheons secured together with cleats and laid across trestles when in
use, but at other times placed against the wall beside the ladder which
gave access to the room above. The table was now in the center of the
floor, spread with some hasty refreshments, of which Captain Demere
invited the forlorn travelers to partake. At the other end lay a
draughtsman's board, a Gunter's scale, a pair of dividers and other
materials, where he had been trying to reduce to paper and topographical
decorum for transference to an official report a map of the region which
Rayetaeh, a chief from Toquoe, who had visited the fort that afternoon,
had drawn on the sand of the parade ground with a flint-headed arrow.
The officer had found this no slight task, for Rayetaeh was prone to
measure distance by the time required to traverse it--"two warriors, a
canoe, and one moon" very definitely meaning a month's journey by
watercourse, but requiring some actively minute calculation to bring the
space in question to the proportional scale. Rayetaeh