which held rapid converse with his strange
host.

Presently Dick returned, followed by a--_vision in leather_! the sight
of which struck March Marston dumb, and rendered him for a few moments
as totally incapable of moving hand, tongue, or foot, as if he had been
bewitched--which, in a sense, he was.

"This is the little girl I spoke of t'ye," said Dick looking at March,
and patting the girl on her soft cheek with a hand that might have
passed for a small shoulder of mutton. "She'll take good care of ye,
March. I've told her what to do; but she don't need to be told. Now,
see ye don't do yerself a mischief, lad, till I come back. It won't be
long--a day or two, mayhap, more or less; but ye'll take that time to
mend; you're worse battered than ye think of--so, good-day."

While the Wild Man was ejaculating these sentences abruptly, he was
striding about the cave with what may be styled _enormous_ vigour,
picking up and buckling on his weapons of war. He seized a double-edged
sword of gigantic proportions, and buckled it to his waist; but March
saw it not. He pulled on the scalp-fringed coat of a Blackfoot chief,
with leggings to match; but March knew it not. He slung a powder-horn
and bullet-pouch round his shoulders, stuck a knife and tomahawk into
his belt, and grasped a long rifle which stood in a corner; and, in
doing all this, he made such a tremendous clatter, and displayed such
wonderful activity, and grew so much fiercer to look at in every stage
of the process, that March would certainly have recurred to the idea of
the Wild Man, had he been in his ordinary state of mind; but he was
_not_ in that happy condition. March knew nothing about it whatever!

Before going, Dick stooped and kissed the "vision" on the cheek. March
saw that! It recalled him for a moment and made him aware of the
disappearance of his host, and of the loud clattering sounds of his
charger's hoofs, as he led him at a rapid walk across the outer cave.
March even heard the general clatter of all his accoutrements, as he
vaulted into the saddle at one bound, and went down that terrible rocky
way at a breakneck gallop that would have caused him (March) in other
circumstances to shudder. But he did _not_ shudder. He was but faintly
aware of these things. His intellect was overturned; his whole soul was
captivated; his imagination, his perceptions, his conceptions--all his
faculties and capacities were utterly overwhelmed and absor