"Well, the girl was evidently very much alarmed. She was awfully pale;
she was a monstrous pretty girl too--the prettiest by all odds I ever
saw, and that's saying a good deal. By Jove! Well, it turned out that
she had been stopping in the back country for a month, at a house
somewhere up the river, with her father. Her father had gone down to
Ottawa a week before, and was expected back on this day. She had come
out to meet him, and had lost her way. She had been out for hours, and
was completely bewildered. She was also frightened at the fires, which
now seemed to be all around us. This she told me in a few words, and
asked if I knew where the river was.

"Of course I knew no more than she did, and it needed only a few words
from me to show her that I was as much in the dark as she was. I began
to question her, however, as to this river, for it struck me that in
the present state of affairs a river would not be a bad thing to have
near one. In answer to my question she said that she had come upon
this road from the woods on the left, and therefore it was evident
that the river lay in that direction.

"I assured her that I would do whatever lay in my power; and with that
I walked on in the direction in which I had been going, while she rode
by my side. Some further questions as to the situation of the house
where she had been staying showed me that it was on the banks of the
river about fifty miles above Ottawa. By my own calculations I was
about that distance away. It seemed to me, then, that she had got lost
in the woods, and had wandered thus over some trail to the path where
she had met me. Every thing served to show me that the river lay to
the left, and so I resolved to turn in at the first path which I
reached.

"At length, after about two miles, we came to a path which went into
the woods. My companion was sure that this was the very one by which
she had come out, and this confirmed the impression which the sight of
it had given me. I thought it certainly must lead toward the river. So
we turned into this path. I went first, and she followed, and so we
went for about a couple of miles further.

"All this time the heat had been getting worse and worse. The air was
more smoky than ever; my mouth was parched and dry. I breathed with
difficulty, and could scarcely drag one leg after another. The lady
was almost as much exhausted as I was, and suffered acutely, as I
could easily see, though she uttered not a w