tailed in the first chapter was but one among many that were
constantly occurring, and it scarcely equaled in importance numerous
exploits that they had before performed.

There was a fifth member, who joined the Riflemen only a year or two
previous to the period in which we design to notice their actions more
particularly. He was known as Ferdinand Sego, and became a member from
a part which he performed one night on the Ohio, when the Riflemen were
attacked by three times their number. He displayed such activity, skill
and courage, that he was importuned to unite with them, although, up to
this time, they had refused to receive any accessions to their number.
He consented, and from that time forward the Riflemen of the Miami
numbered five hunters.

Sego joined them, however, with the understanding that he should be
obliged to absent himself from time to time. At regular intervals he
left them, and was gone sometimes for over a week. As he had no rifle,
the cause of these excursions remained a mystery to his friends until
he chose to reveal it himself. It then turned out that it was nothing
less than a female that exercised such a potent influence upon him.
Sego, as he became intimately acquainted with his friends, often spoke
of this girl, and of the great affection he bore her. One day he gave
her name--Edith Sudbury. This excited no unusual interest, until Lewis
Dernor learned, on the day that he encountered the emigrants, that he
and Sego loved the same girl!

This was the cause of his unusual agitation, and the pain he felt at
hearing her name pronounced. He entertained the strongest friendship
for Sego, but, until he had met Edith, he had never known any thing, by
experience, of the divine power of our nature. When he did love,
therefore, it was with his whole soul and being. His companions, less
sagacious in sentimental affairs than worldly, failed to divine the
cause of the singular actions of their leader, who did his utmost to
conceal it from them. Little did he dream, as he listened to the
enthusiastic praises of Edith by Sego, that it was the being who
constantly occupied his thoughts. But the truth had broken upon him
like a peal of thunder at midday.

On the day succeeding Lewis' departure from the settlers, three of his
men, O'Hara, Dernor and Allmat, stood on the banks of the Miami,
several hundred yards above their rendezvous. The sky was clear and
sunshiny, and they were making ready for a trial o