just then you sprang up and cried the troops were
coming, and sure enough, there they were just entering the clearing, and
the Indians paused only for one look and then fled down the stairs as
fast as they could go. 'T was you who saved us all, Dorothy."

"Oh, but there was something more!" she cried. "There was one Indian who
did not run, Tom, but who stopped to aim at me. I saw him do it, and I
closed my eyes, for I knew that he would kill me, and I heard his gun's
report, but no bullet struck me. For it was you whom it struck, dear,
through your hand and into your side, and for long we thought you dying."

"Yes," I said, "but you see I am not dying, nor like to die, dear
Dorothy, so that I may still rejoin the troops erelong."

She was looking at me with streaming eyes.

"Do you mean that I am not going to get well, Dorothy?" I asked, for I
confess her tears frightened me.

"Oh, not so bad as that, dear!" she cried. "Thank God, not so bad as
that! But your hand, Tom, your right hand is gone. You can never
wield a sword again, dear, never go to war. You will have to stay at
home with me."

I know not how it was, but she was in my arms, and her lips were on mine,
and I knew that was no more parting for us.

CHAPTER XVIII

AND SO, GOOD-BY

Well, a right hand is a little price to pay for the love of a wife like
mine, and if I have made no name in the world, I at least live happy in
it, which is perhaps a greater thing. And I have grown to use my left
hand very handily. I have learnt to write with it, as the reader
knows,--and when I hold my wife to me, I have her ever next my heart.

It is the fashion, I know well, to stop the story on the altar's steps,
and leave the reader to guess at all that may come after, but as I turn
over the pages I have writ, they seem too much a tale of failure and
defeat, and I would not have it so. For the lessons learned at Fort
Necessity and Winchester and at Duquesne have given us strength to drive
the French from the continent and the Indian from the frontier. So that
now we dwell in peace, and live our lives in quiet and content, save for
some disagreements with the king about our taxes, which Lord Grenville
has made most irksome.

And even to my dearest friend, whose life, as I have traced it here, has
been so full of sorrow and reverse, has come great happiness. He is
honored of all men, and has found love as well, for he has brought a wife
home to Mount Vernon.