mber was
left, unknown to them, in a state of insensibility near the spot where
the first rencontre had taken place.

When the Indians and trappers met in the narrow defile, as before
related, one of the arrows, which had been discharged very much at
random, entered the shoulder of March Marston's horse and wounded it
mortally. At first March thought the wound was slight, and, hearing the
shouts of some of the savages not far behind him, he urged his horse
forward as rapidly as the nature of the ground would admit of. Before
he had gone a quarter of a mile, however, the poor steed fell, throwing
March over its head. In his flight the youth's forehead came into
violent contact with a branch, and he fell to the ground insensible.

His comrades, ignorant of his fate, continued their wild flight. Thus,
our hero was forsaken, and left bruised and bleeding in the dark forest.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

MARCH GETS A SURPRISE; MORE THAN THAT, HE GETS A VARIETY OF SURPRISES--
MEETS WITH A STRANGE HUNTER--GOES IN A STRANGE FASHION TO A STRANGE
CAVERN AND BEHOLDS STRANGE SIGHTS--BESIDES OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST.

On recovering consciousness, March discovered that it was broad
daylight--from which he argued in a confused sort of way that he must
have lain there all night. He also discovered that his head, which
ached violently, rested on the knee of some unknown individual, who
bathed his temples with cold water. Looking up he encountered the gaze
of a pair of soft blue eyes.

Now there is something exceedingly captivating in a pair of soft blue
eyes--not that there may not be something quite as captivating in a pair
of brown or black or grey eyes--but there is something singularly
captivating in the peculiar style of captivation wherewith a man is
captivated by a pair of blue--distinctly _blue_--eyes. Perhaps it is
that their resemblance to the cerulean depths of the bright sky and the
blue profundities of the ocean invests them with a suggestive influence
that is agreeable to the romantic and idealising tendencies of human
nature; or that the colour is (or ought to be, if it is not) emblematic
of purity. We throw out this suggestion solely for the benefit of
unimpassioned philosophers. Those whose hearts are already under the
pleasant thraldom of black or brown eyes are incapable of forming an
opinion on the abstract question.

Well, March observed, further, that below those soft blue eyes, there
was a handsome Roma