vages passed from place to place in the execution of their
diabolical mission.

The greater part of the detachment which had halted at the house of Mr.
Grant had now departed, though the sounds which came from the dwelling
indicated that the rest were still there. Lean Bear knew the members of
Mr. Grant's household. With his own hand he had slain the woman who had
so often fed him, and ministered to his necessities, thus belying the
traditional character of his race; and it was not probable that he
would abandon his object without a diligent search for the missing
members of the family.

Fanny was safe for the present moment, but the next instant might doom
her to a violent death, to cruel torture, or to a captivity more to be
dreaded than either death or torture. She trembled with mortal fear,
and dreaded the revelations of each new second of time with an
intensity of horror which cannot be understood or described.

"They are comin' out of the house," said Ethan, in a tremulous whisper.
"There's seven on 'em."

"Are they coming this way?"

"No; they are lookin' round arter us. They are going down to the lake."

"I hope they won't come here."

"But they will kim here, as sure as you live."

"Do you ever pray, Ethan?" asked Fanny, impressively.

"Not much," replied he, evasively.

"Let us pray to God. He can help us, and He will, if we ask Him in the
right spirit."

"I dunno how," added Ethan.

"I will pray for both of us. The Indians can't hear us now, but God
can."

Fanny, in a whisper, uttered a brief and heart-felt prayer for
protection and safety from the savage monsters who were thirsting for
their blood. She prayed earnestly, and never before had her
supplications come so directly from her heart. She pleaded for herself
and for her companion, and the good Father seemed to be very near to
her as she poured forth her simple petition.

"Thy will, not ours, be done," she murmured, as she thought that it
might not be the purpose of "Him who doeth all things well" to save
them from the tomahawk of the Indians. If it was not His will that they
should pass in safety through this ordeal of blood, she asked that they
might be happy in death, or submissive to whatever fate was in store
for them.

Ethan listened to the prayer, and seemed to join earnestly in the
petitions it contained. With his more devout companion, he felt that
God was able to save them, to blunt the edges of the weapons raised to
destr