tuart was already
fully apprised of their long and perilous flight from Virginia. He stood
awaiting their approach,--a tall man of about twenty-eight years of age,
bluff and smiling, with dense light-brown hair braided in a broad, heavy
queue and tied with a black ribbon. He had a fair complexion,
considerably sun-burned, strong white teeth with a wide arch of the jaw,
and he regarded her with keen steel-blue eyes, steady and unfathomable,
yet withal pleasant. He took off his hat and cordially held out his
hand. Odalie could do naught but clasp it in both her cold hands and
shed tears over it, mute and trembling.

With that ready tact which always distinguished him, Captain Stuart
broke the tension of the situation.

"Do you wish to enlist, Mrs. MacLeod?" he said, his smile showing a
glimpse of his white teeth. "His majesty, the king, has need of
stout-hearted soldiers. And I will take my oath I never saw a braver
one!"

And Odalie broke into laughter to blend with her tears, because she
divined that it was with the intention of passing on a difficulty that
he not ungracefully transferred her hands to the officer standing near
with the words, "I have the pleasure of presenting Captain Demere."
However capable Captain Stuart might be of dealing with savages, he
evidently shrank from the ordeal of being wept over and thanked by a
woman.

He has been described by a contemporary historian as "an officer of
great address and sagacity," and although he may have demonstrated these
qualities on more conspicuous occasions, they were never more definite
than in thus securing his escape from feminine tearfulness.

Captain Demere was of a graver aspect. He heard without impatience her
wild insistence that the whole available force of the fort should turn
out and scour the wilderness for her husband--he even argued the matter.
It would be impossible to find Mr. MacLeod at night and the effort might
cost him his life. "So marked a demonstration of a military nature would
alarm the Indians and precipitate an outbreak which we have some reason
to expect. If he does not appear by daylight, the hunters of the fort
who always go out shall take that direction and scout the woods. Rest
assured everything shall be done which is possible."

She felt that she must needs be content with this, and as it had been
through the intervention of the officers that she and Hamish and Fifine
were set free, it did not lie in her mouth to doubt thei