es. The Indians which he
had assisted so signally to repulse, he believed would hover around the
settlers so long as there remained an opportunity to pick off any of
them. They would not fail, too, to scour the woods in search of smaller
parties, and knowing the destination of the emigrants, would select the
very ground over which they too were journeying. The Rifleman took the
best course to avoid them. Retracing his steps some distance, he turned
off toward the creek, he having concluded to ascend this for several
miles, and then take a circuitous route to the settlement, convinced
that, in this case, the longest way was the surest.

"Why this change of direction?" asked Edith, looking up in alarm, as he
turned and commenced retracing his steps.

"I think it best," he replied, with a smile.

"Have you discovered danger? Are we pursued?"

"Not that I know of. But I have been thinking for some time that if
there _are_ any Injins in this wood, this is the very ground they will
select to cut us off, because they know that it is the one which we
would naturally take, in making such a journey as this."

"_I have full faith in you._"

And the gallant Rifleman felt he would die before any act of his should
cause her to lose this faith in him. As she turned her trusting blue
eyes up to his, their heavenly light seemed to fill his whole being,
and he scarcely was conscious of what he did when he reached out his
hand, and said:

"Edith, let me take your hand."

"Why, what need is there of that?" she coyly asked, with a roguish
look, as she half complied and half hesitated.

"I shall feel safer--that is, I shall feel more certain of your safety
if I lead you."

"Oh! well, you may lead me then," and she slid her almost fairy hand
into his hard, horny palm, with a charming simplicity, which made the
hunter's heart leap with a painful pleasure. That little, white member,
as the Rifleman grasped it, was like the poles of a battery. It sent a
shock through every part of his system, and gave his arm precisely the
same tremor that takes place when a person is charged through this limb
with electricity. If Edith had only returned the pressure, Lewis Dernor
most assuredly would never have been able to stand it, and, therefore,
it was fortunate that she did not.

It was this pressure, and the looks accompanying it, that made Edith
Sudbury conscious that the hunter loved her. She would have been an
exception to her sex had she