erokees were famous among all the tribes. Yet the
realization of his peril did not so diminish his scope of feeling as to
prevent him from inwardly upbraiding his ill-starred generosity as the
folly of a hopeless fool, more especially as the elder woman--she of the
many tears--held up the substantial gift of provisions, jeering at him
with a look in her face that did not need to be supplemented by the
scoffing of language.

"The auld randy besom!" the soldier commented within himself. "But eh, I
didna gie it to be thankit,--nae sic a fule as that comes to, neither!"

Hoping against hope, he thought that the length of his absence would
inevitably alarm the ensign for his scout's safety, when it should
attract attention, and induce the officer to send a party for his relief
and for further investigation of the precipice, whence the smoke
intimated an ambush of the enemy. This expectation had no sooner
suggested its solace and the exercise of patience in the certainty of
ultimate rescue, than the Highlander began to mark the preparations
among the Indians for a swift departure. But how? The precipice was a
sheer descent for eighty feet, the ruggedness of its face barely
affording foothold for a bird or a mountaineer; and at its base hovered
the ensign's party within striking distance. A resisting captive could
not be withdrawn by this perilous path. The soldier looked in doubt and
suspense about the restricted limits of the cavity in the great crag.
The mystery was soon solved.

The position of all had changed in the struggle, and from where Kenneth
MacVintie now stood he noted a scant suggestion of light flickering down
from a black fissure in the roof of the cavity, and instantly realized
that it must give an exit upon the mountain slope beyond. The agility
with which Attusah of Kanootare sprang up and leaped into it was
admirable to behold, but MacVintie did not believe that, although
knotted up as he was in his own plaid passed under his arms and around
his waist for the purpose, he could be lifted by the ends of the fabric
through that aperture by the strength of any one man. Naturally he
himself would make no effort to facilitate the enterprise. On the
contrary, such inertness as the sheer exercise of will could compass was
added to his dead weight. Nevertheless he rose slowly, slowly through
the air. As he was finally dragged through the rift in the rocks, his
first feeling was one of gratification to perceive tha