'arth."

"It was a convenient, and, I trust, will prove a peaceful grave for a
soldier. You have then seen much service on this frontier?"

"Ay!" said the scout, erecting his tall person with an air of military
pride; "there are not many echoes among these hills that haven't rung
with the crack of my rifle, nor is there the space of a square mile
atwixt Horican and the river, that 'killdeer' hasn't dropped a living
body on, be it an enemy or be it a brute beast. As for the grave there
being as quiet as you mention, it is another matter. There are them
in the camp who say and think, man, to lie still, should not be buried
while the breath is in the body; and certain it is that in the hurry of
that evening, the doctors had but little time to say who was living and
who was dead. Hist! see you nothing walking on the shore of the pond?"

"'Tis not probable that any are as houseless as ourselves in this dreary
forest."

"Such as he may care but little for house or shelter, and night dew can
never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout,
grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to
make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror
had got the mastery of a man usually so dauntless.

"By heaven, there is a human form, and it approaches! Stand to your
arms, my friends; for we know not whom we encounter."

"Qui vive?" demanded a stern, quick voice, which sounded like a
challenge from another world, issuing out of that solitary and solemn
place.

"What says it?" whispered the scout; "it speaks neither Indian nor
English."

"Qui vive?" repeated the same voice, which was quickly followed by the
rattling of arms, and a menacing attitude.

"France!" cried Heyward, advancing from the shadow of the trees to the
shore of the pond, within a few yards of the sentinel.

"D'ou venez-vous--ou allez-vous, d'aussi bonne heure?" demanded the
grenadier, in the language and with the accent of a man from old France.

"Je viens de la decouverte, et je vais me coucher."

"Etes-vous officier du roi?"

"Sans doute, mon camarade; me prends-tu pour un provincial! Je suis
capitaine de chasseurs (Heyward well knew that the other was of a
regiment in the line); j'ai ici, avec moi, les filles du commandant
de la fortification. Aha! tu en as entendu parler! je les ai fait
prisonnieres pres de l'autre fort, et je les conduis au general."

"Ma foi! mesdames; j'en suis fache