im; and this gladness was increased to delight when he
expressed his willingness to accompany them across the dreaded creek.
In the course of a half-hour the females began to make their
appearance. Near by was a small stream where they performed their
ablutions, which finished, they gathered around the camp-fire, and
busied themselves with preparing the breakfast of the party.

Dernor, the Rifleman, was conversing with one of the settlers, when
some one touched him on the shoulder. Looking around, he encountered
his friend, Jim Smith.

"Here's a person I s'pose you've no objection to see," said he, with a
light laugh.

The bronzed face of the hunter deepened its hue as he saw Edith Sudbury
approaching, and although gifted with a natural grace of manner, he
displayed some embarrassment as he advanced to greet her. Her conduct,
too, was not without its suspicious air. Rosy and fresh as the flowers
of the green woods around, perhaps the carnation of her cheeks was
caused only by the morning exercise. Jim noticed these manifestations,
and quietly smiled, but said nothing.

In regard to the Rifleman, at least, he was right. As that brave and
gallant-hearted ranger wandered through the grand old forests of Ohio,
and the cane-brakes of the "Dark and Bloody Ground," a fair face had
haunted his waking and dreaming hours. As he knelt beside the sparkling
brook to slake his thirst, he beheld the same features reflected beside
his own in its mirror-like surface. As alone he threaded his way
through the labyrinths of those dim solitudes, he had a fairy companion
as faithful to him as his own shadow. And when with his tried and
faithful followers, it was the same. Only in the excitement of the
fight, or the moments when his strategic skill was in rivalry with that
of his dusky enemies, did this shadowy being cease to haunt him. Night
and day, it was the same--and now he had met the _reality_, and was
conversing with her.

The conversation lasted but a few minutes. The services of Edith were
needed, and she tripped away to assist the others at their duties. As
she disappeared, Jim came up and laughingly remarked to the Rifleman:

"A fine girl that, Lewis."

"Indeed she is. I never have heard her name--that is, nothing more than
Edith. What is the rest?"

"Sudbury--Edith Sudbury."

The hunter started, as if bitten by a rattlesnake, and turned as pale
as death. Young Smith noticed his emotion, and asked, with some alarm:

"