, sir! You said you were faint. Here's some of our cider, and
if you will sit up and drink it and eat this bread, you will feel
better, and here is old Moll and the cart ready to take you home where
you will receive good Christian treatment until you are well enough to
go on your way rejoicing."

So he went on, bobbing now here and now there and talking as fast as he
could, so as not to hear the poor man's outpourings of gratitude, as he
ate and drank and was refreshed. With some difficulty, he got the
stranger into the cart, where, supported by the boy's strong arm, he
rode in almost total silence through the increasing darkness to the home
of the widow Stevens. He was taken from the cart and was soon reclining
upon a bed.

His wound, though painful, was not dangerous and began to heal almost
immediately. Surgery was in its infancy in America, and on the frontier
of the American colonies, every one was his own surgeon.

The widow dressed the wound herself, and the stranger recovered rapidly.
Charles next day found a horse straying in the forest with a saddle and
holsters, and, knowing it to be the steed of the wounded stranger, he
brought it home.

As the wounded man recovered he became more silent and melancholy. He
had not even spoken his name and seldom uttered a word unless addressed.

One night this mysterious stranger disappeared from the widow's cottage.
He might have been thought ungrateful had he not left behind five golden
guineas, which, the note left behind said, were in part to remunerate
the good people who had watched over and cared for him so kindly.
Charles Stevens and his mother were much puzzled at this mysterious
stranger, and often when alone they commented on his conduct.

Their home was outside the village of Salem, and for days they did not
have a visitor; but two or three of their neighbors had seen the
stranger while at their house, yet they told no one about him. His
mysterious disappearance was kept a secret by mother and son. Little did
they dream that in after years they would suffer untold sorrow for
playing the part of good Samaritans.

John Louder and his friends had almost forgotten their day of hard luck
in the woods. Their more recent hunts had proven successful, for the
witches had temporarily left off tampering with their guns. The stranger
whom they had met on that evening was quite forgotten.

A fortnight after the stranger disappeared, John Louder was wandering in
the f