ing it:--

"Peter!" said he, addressing himself to the little dog, and that with as
much gravity as if addressing himself to a human adviser, "I have my
thoughts on the matter,--what does _thee_ think of matters and things?"

"My friend," cried Roland, impatiently, "this is no affair to be
entrusted to the wisdom of a brute dog!"

"If there is any one here whose wisdom can serve us better," said Nathan,
meekly, "let him speak. Thee don't know Peter, friend, or thee would use
him with respect. Many a long day has he followed me through the forest;
and many a time has he helped me out of harm and peril from man and
beast, when I was at sore shifts to help myself. For, truly, friend, as I
told thee before, the Injuns have no regard for men, whether men of peace
or war; and an honest, quiet, peace-loving man can no more roam the wood,
hunting for the food that sustains life, without the fear of being
murdered, than a fighting-man in search of his prey.--Thee sees now
what little dog Peter is doing? He runs to the tracks, and he wags his
tail;--truly I am of the same way of thinking!"

"What tracks are they?" demanded Roland, as he followed Nathan to the
path which the latter had been pursuing, when arrested by the soldier,
and where the little cur was now smelling about, occasionally lifting his
head and wagging his tail, as if to call his master's attention.

"_What_ tracks!" echoed Nathan, looking on the youth first with wonder,
and then with commiseration, and adding,--"It was a tempting of
Providence, friend, for _thee_ to lead poor helpless women into a wild
forest. Does thee not know the tracks of thee own horses?"

"'Sdeath!" said Roland, looking on the marks, as Nathan, pointed them out
in the soft earth, and reflecting with chagrin how wildly he had been
rambling, for more than an hour, since they had been impressed on the
soil.

"Thee knows the hoof-marks," said Nathan, now pointing with a grin, at
other tracks of a different appearance among them; "perhaps thee knows
_these_ foot-prints also?"

"They are the marks of footmen," said the soldier, in surprise; "but how
came they there I know not, no footmen being of our party."

The grin that marked the visage of the man of peace widened almost into a
laugh, as Roland spoke. "Verily," he cried, "thee is in the wrong place,
friend, in the forest! If thee had no footmen with thee, could thee have
none _after_ thee? Look, friend, here are tracks, not of one ma