his heart! Listen to what a grey head and
some experience have to offer, and then if any among you can point out
a wiser fashion for a retreat, we can just follow his design, and forget
that I have spoken. This thicket stretches for near a mile as it may
be slanting from the rock, and leads towards the sunset instead of the
settlements."

"Enough, enough," cried Middleton, too impatient to wait until the
deliberative and perhaps loquacious old man could end his minute
explanation. "Time is too precious for words. Let us fly."

The trapper made a gesture of compliance, and turning in his tracks, he
led Asinus across the trembling earth of the swale, and quickly emerged
on the hard ground, on the side opposite to the encampment of the
squatter.

"If old Ishmael gets a squint at that highway through the brush," cried
Paul, casting, as he left the place, a hasty glance at the broad trail
the party had made through the thicket, "he'll need no finger-board
to tell him which way his road lies. But let him follow! I know the
vagabond would gladly cross his breed with a little honest blood, but if
any son of his ever gets to be the husband of--"

"Hush, Paul, hush," said the terrified young woman, who leaned on his
arm for support; "your voice might be heard."

The bee-hunter was silent, though he did not cease to cast ominous looks
behind him, as they flew along the edge of the run, which sufficiently
betrayed the belligerent condition of his mind. As each one was busy for
himself, but a few minutes elapsed before the party rose a swell of the
prairie, and descending without a moment's delay on the opposite side,
they were at once removed from every danger of being seen by the sons of
Ishmael, unless the pursuers should happen to fall upon their trail.
The old man now profited by the formation of the land to take another
direction, with a view to elude pursuit, as a vessel changes her course
in fogs and darkness, to escape from the vigilance of her enemies.

Two hours, passed in the utmost diligence, enabled them to make a half
circuit around the rock, and to reach a point that was exactly opposite
to the original direction of their flight. To most of the fugitives
their situation was as entirely unknown as is that of a ship in the
middle of the ocean to the uninstructed voyager: but the old man
proceeded at every turn, and through every bottom, with a decision that
inspired his followers with confidence, as it spoke favo