r several miles in front of the
spot. Beyond this forest the scene was broken by hills and valleys, and
little plains, richly diversified with wood and water--the former in
dense masses, scattered groups, and isolated clusters; the latter
shining in the forms of lakelet and stream, or glancing snow-white in
numberless cascades. Beyond all, the dark-blue giant masses of the
Rocky Mountains towered up and up, hill upon hill, pile upon pile, mass
on mass, till they terminated in distant peaks, so little darker than
the sky that they seemed scarcely more solid than the clouds with which
they mingled and blended their everlasting snows.

"An't it beautiful?" cried March, riding forward with a bounding
sensation of inexpressible delight.

Bertram followed him, but did not answer. He was too deeply absorbed in
the simple act of intently gazing and drinking in the scene to listen or
to reply.

At the precise moment in which March made the above remark, his quick
eye observed a spear head which one of the savages, hid among the bushes
there, had not taken sufficient pains to conceal.

March Marston was a young hunter, and, as yet an inexperienced warrior;
but from childhood he had been trained, as if it were in spirit, by the
anecdotes and tales of the many hunters who had visited Pine Point
settlement. His natural powers of self-control were very great, but he
had to tax all these powers to the uttermost to maintain his look of
animated delight in the scenery unchanged, after making the above
startling discovery. But March did it! His first severe trial in the
perils of backwoods life had come--without warning or time for
preparation; and he passed through it like a true hero.

That a spear handle must necessarily support a spear head; that an
Indian probably grasped the former; that, in the present position of
affairs, there were certainly more Indians than one in ambush; and that,
in all probability, there were at that moment two or three dozen arrows
resting on their respective bows, and pointed towards his and his
comrade's hearts, ready to take flight the instant they should come
within sure and deadly range, were ideas which did not follow each other
in rapid succession through his brain, but darted upon the young
hunter's quick perceptions instantaneously, and caused his heart to beat
on his ribs like a sledge-hammer, and the blood to fly violently to his
face.

Luckily March's face was deeply browned, and d