ed to counsel flight.

"Discretion! Discretion to perdition!" I cried, springing up from a
midnight reverie in my hut. Every selfish argument for my own safety had
passed in review before my mind, and something so akin to judicious
caution, which we trappers in plain language called "cowardice," was
insidiously assailing my better self, I cast logic's sophistries to the
winds, and dared death or torture to drive me from my post. Whence comes
this sublime, reasonless _abandon_ of imperiled human beings, which
casts off fear and caution and prudence and forethought and all that
goes to make success in the common walks of life, and at one blind leap
mounts the Sinai of duty? To me, the impulse upwards is as mysterious as
the impulse downwards, and I do not wonder that pagans ascribe one to
Ormuzd, the other to Ahriman. 'Tis ours to yield or resist, and I
yielded with the vehemence of a passionate nature, vowing in the
darkness of the hut--"Here, before God, I stay!"

Swift came test of my oath. While the words were yet on my lips,
stealthy steps suddenly glided round the lodge. A shuffling stopped at
the door, while a chilling fear took possession of me lest the mutilated
form of my other Indian should next be hurled through the window. I had
not time to shoot the door-bolt to its catch before a sharp click told
of lifted latch. The hinge creaked, and there, distinct in the
starlight, that smote through the open, stood Little Fellow, himself,
haggard and almost naked.

"Little Fellow! Good boy!" I shouted, pulling him in. "Where did you
come from? How did you get away? Is it you or your ghost?"

Down he squatted with a grunt on one of the robes, answering never a
word. The gaunt look of the man declared his needs, so I prepared to
feed him back to speech. This task kept me busy till daybreak, for the
filling capacity of a famishing Indian may not be likened to any other
hungry thing on earth without doing the red man grave injustice.

"Hoohoo! Hoohoo! But I be sick man to-morrow!" and he rubbed himself
down with a satisfied air of distension, declining to have his plate
reloaded for the tenth time. I noticed the poor wretch's skin was cut to
the bone round wrists and ankles. Chafed bandage marks encircled the
flesh of his neck.

"What did this, Little Fellow?" and I pointed to the scars.

A grim look of Indian gratitude for my interest came into the stolid
face.

"Bad Indians," was the terse response.

"Did they