chments of wild beasts; for wolves were plentiful and roamed the
night-bound earth, and the active panther, the great American cougar,
was wont to look down from the branches of overhanging trees. The horses
were not safe beyond the flare of the flames, to say nothing of wife and
child. Therefore the risk of attracting observation from Indians must be
run, especially since it was abated by the descending dusk. The little
treacherous smoke escaping from the forest to curl against the blue sky
need not be feared at night. The darkness would hide all from a
distance; as to foes lurking nearer at hand, why, if any such there
were, then their fate was already upon them. With the stout heart of the
pioneer, Alexander MacLeod heaped the fagots upon the ground and struck
the flint and steel together after giving the officious little Josephine
a chance to try her luck with the tinder. Soon the dry dead wood was
timidly ablaze, while Hamish led the horses to the water and picketed
them out.

Odalie's eyes followed the boy with a sort of belated yet painful
anxiety, thinking how near he had been to parting with that stanch young
spirit, and what a bereavement would have been the loss of that blithe
element from their daily lives.

"_Quelle barbarie!_" she exclaimed suddenly. "_Quelle barbarie!_"

Perhaps her husband realized her fatigue and depression and was willing
to put his French accent on parade for her amusement; perhaps it was for
the sake of the old flouting retort; he theatrically rejoined without
looking up, "_Partons pour la France aujourd'hui, pour l'amour de
Dieu._"

And Josephine, taking the cat out of its basket and kissing its whiskers
and the top of its head, was condoling with it on its long
restraint:--"_Quelle barbarie, ma poupee, quelle barbarie, ma douce
mignonne,_" she poutingly babbled.

Alexander MacLeod paused to listen to this affectionate motherly
discourse; then glanced up at his wife with a smile, to call her
attention to it.

She had not moved. She had turned to stone. It seemed as if she could
never move again. A waving blotch of red sumach leaves in a niche in the
dark wall of the crag hard by had caught her notice. A waving blotch of
red leaves in the autumnal dusk,--what more natural?

What more wonderful? What more fearful?

There was no wind. How could the bough stir? There was no bough. The
blotch of color was the red and black of a hideous painted face that in
the dusk, the treache