side,
now kneeled in the cover also, and kept a keen and watchful eye on the
route of the band, soothing the fears of the girl, and restraining the
impatience of the youth, in the same breath.

"If there's one, there's thirty of the miscreants!" he said, in a sort
of episode to his whispered comments. "Ay, ay; they are edging towards
the river--Peace, pup--peace--no, here they come this way again--the
thieves don't seem to know their own errand! If there were just six of
us, lad, what a beautiful ambushment we might make upon them, from this
very spot--it won't do, it won't do, boy; keep yourself closer, or your
head will be seen--besides, I'm not altogether strong in the opinion it
would be lawful, as they have done us no harm.--There they bend again to
the river--no; here they come up the swell--now is the moment to be as
still, as if the breath had done its duty and departed the body."

The old man sunk into the grass while he was speaking, as if the final
separation to which he alluded, had, in his own case, actually occurred,
and, at the next instant, a band of wild horsemen whirled by them, with
the noiseless rapidity in which it might be imagined a troop of spectres
would pass. The dark and fleeting forms were already vanished, when the
trapper ventured again to raise his head to a level with the tops of
the bending herbage, motioning at the same time, to his companions to
maintain their positions and their silence.

"They are going down the swell, towards the encampment," he continued,
in his former guarded tones; "no, they halt in the bottom, and are
clustering together like deer, in council. By the Lord, they are turning
again, and we are not yet done with the reptiles!"

Once more he sought his friendly cover, and at the next instant the dark
troop were to be seen riding, in a disorderly manner, on the very summit
of the little elevation on which the trapper and his companions lay. It
was now soon apparent that they had returned to avail themselves of the
height of the ground, in order to examine the dim horizon.

Some dismounted, while others rode to and fro, like men engaged in a
local enquiry of much interest. Happily, for the hidden party, the grass
in which they were concealed, not only served to skreen them from the
eyes of the savages, but opposed an obstacle to prevent their horses,
which were no less rude and untrained than their riders, from trampling
on them, in their irregular and wild paces.