ill be
grateful," I said, "for I have come many miles this day, and the
welcome I have got this evening has been too warm for a weary man."

The Indian nodded. The jest was after his own taste.

I was carried to a teepee and shown a couch of dry fern. A young man
rubbed some oil on my scorched legs, which relieved the pain of them.
But no pain on earth could have kept me awake. I did not glide but
pitched headforemost into sleep.

CHAPTER XXV.

EVENTS ON THE HILL-SIDE.

My body was too sore to suffer me to sleep dreamlessly, but my dreams
were pleasant. I thought I was in a sunny place with Elspeth, and that
she had braided a coronet of wild flowers for her hair. They were
simple flowers, such as I had known in childhood and had not found in
Virginia--yarrow, and queen of the meadow, and bluebells, and the
little eyebright. A great peace filled me, and Ringan came presently to
us and spoke in his old happy speech. 'Twas to the accompaniment of
Elspeth's merry laughter that I wakened, to find myself in a dark,
strange-smelling place, with a buffalo robe laid over me, and no stitch
of clothing on my frame.

That wakening was bitter indeed. I opened my eyes to another day of
pain and peril, with no hope of deliverance. For usual I am one of
those who rise with a glad heart and a great zest for whatever the
light may bring. Now, as I moved my limbs, I found aches everywhere,
and but little strength in my bones. Slowly the events of the last day
came back to me--the journey in the dripping woods, the fight in the
ravine, the death of my comrade, the long horror of the hours of
torture. No man can be a hero at such an awakening. I had not the
courage of a chicken in my soul, and could have wept with weakness and
terror.

I felt my body over, and made out that I had taken no very desperate
hurt. My joints were swollen with the bonds, and every sinew seemed as
stiff as wire. The skin had been scorched on my shins and feet, and was
peeling off in patches, but the ointment which had been rubbed on it
had taken the worst ache out of the wounds. I tottered to my feet, and
found that I could stand, and even move slowly like an old man. My
clothes had been brought back and laid beside me, and with much
difficulty I got into them; but I gave up the effort to get my
stockings and boots over my scorched legs. My pistols, too, had been
restored, and Ringan's sword, and the gold amulet he had entrusted to
me. Somehow, in t