me over this
remarkable hunter. After gazing into the woods, as we have said, for
some minutes, he quietly dismounted, and plucking a tuft of grass from
the plain, wiped his bloody sword, and sheathed it. Not a trace of his
late ferocity was visible. His mind seemed to be filled with sadness,
for he sighed slightly, and shook his head with a look of deep sorrow,
as his eyes rested on the dead men. There was a mild gravity in his
countenance that seemed to Bertram incompatible with the fiend-like fury
of his attack, and a slow heaviness in his motions that amounted almost
to laziness, and seemed equally inconsistent with the vigour he had so
recently displayed, which was almost cat-like, if we may apply such a
term to the actions of so huge a pair as this man and his horse were.

A profusion of light-brown hair hung in heavy masses over his herculean
shoulders, and a bushy moustache and beard of the same colour covered
the lower part of his deeply browned face, which was handsome and mild,
but eminently masculine, in expression.

Remounting his horse, which seemed now to be as quiet and peaceable as
himself, this singular being turned and rode towards that part of the
wood that lay nearest to the wild rocky masses that formed the outlet
from the pass. On gaining the verge of the plain he turned his head
full round, and fixed his clear blue eyes on the wondering artist. A
quiet smile played on his bronzed features for an instant as he bestowed
upon him a cheerful nod of farewell. Then, urging his steed forward, he
entered the woods at a slow walk, and disappeared.

The heavy tramp of his horse's hoofs among the broken stones of the
rugged path had scarcely died away when the distant tread of the
returning fur-traders broke on Bertram's ear. This aroused him from the
state of half-sceptical horror in which he gazed upon the scene of blood
and death in the midst of which he stood. Presently his eye fell, for
the first time, upon the motionless form of March Marston. The sight
effectually restored him. With a slight cry of alarm, he sprang to his
friend's side, and, kneeling down, endeavoured to loosen the death-like
grasp with which he still held the throat of his foe. The horror of the
poor artist may be imagined, when he observed that the skull of the
Indian was battered in, and that his young comrade's face was
bespattered with blood and brains.

Just then several of the trappers and fur-traders galloped u