adrift, he lifted the young woman into the scow, and began to warp
rapidly across by the rope with one hand, while he supported his
fainting companion close to him with the other. Suddenly, a sharp
click sounded from the opposite bank: the rope gave way, and Walker
and his companion were precipitated violently into the water, the boat
shooting far away from beneath their feet. It ran a strong current
there, culminating in a furious rapid not two hundred yards lower
down. Retaining his grasp of the young woman, Walker fought bravely
against the stream, down which he felt they were sweeping, faster and
faster, until a violent concussion deprived him, for a moment, of
consciousness. When he came to himself, he was still swimming, but his
companion was gone. The current had driven them forcibly against a
rock, throwing her from his grasp. The wild rapid was just below them.
She was never heard of again; but Walker managed to reach the shore,
where he must have lain long in an exhausted condition, for it was
daylight when he awoke to any recollection of what had happened.

The ferry-rope had been cut, as he afterwards discovered, by an
Indian, in whose brother's removal by hanging he had been
instrumental, and who had been watching him, day and night, for the
purpose of wreaking a bitter vengeance.

Returning to reconnoitre, with some of his friends, Walker found the
mission a heap of ruins,--blackened walls, charred rafters, and
unrecognizable human remains.

Long afterwards, he learned that his bride was again living among the
Blackfeet;--for it was Bloyse, and not Alixe, with whom he had
galloped away to the fatal ferry, in the confusion of that terrible
night. It was poor Bloyse who went away from his arms down those
crushing rapids. It was Alixe, his bride, who shot back the bolts for
the entrance of the Blackfeet. She was secretly betrothed in the
tribe, and it was her betrothed whom Walker shot down as he was
rushing away in triumph with his supposed _fiancee_ of the pale-faces.
She married another Indian of the tribe, however; for she was a savage
woman at heart, and could live among savages only.

"Sisters may be as like as two walnuts, to look at," said the old
_voyageur_, when he had finished his narration. "Take any two walnuts
from a heap, at random, though, and, like as not, you'll find one on
'em all heart and the other all hollow."

"True," replied I; "but these be wild adventures for one whose boyhood