nd it fast. Into the improvised saddle I mounted--the girl, from a
rock, leaping upon the croup behind me. "You, Wolf!" cried she,
apostrophising the dog; "you stay here by the game, and guard it from
the _coyotes_. Remember! rascal! not a mouthful till I return. Now,
stranger!" she continued, shifting closer to me, and clasping me round
the waist, "I am ready. Give your steed to the road; and spare him not,
as you value the lives of your comrades. Up the ravine lies our way.
Ho! onward!"

The brave horse needed no spur. He seemed to understand that speed was
required of him; and, stretching at once into a gallop, carried us gaily
up the gorge.

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE.

A QUEER CONVERSATION.

Is other days, and under other circumstances, the touch of that round
arm, softly encircling my waist, might have caused the current of my
veins to flow fast and fevered. Not so then. My blood was thin and
chill. My soul recoiled from amatory emotions, or indulged in them only
as a remembrance. Even in that hour of trial and temptation, my heart
was true to thee, Lilian! Had it been _thy_ arm thus wound around my
waist--had those eyes that glanced over my shoulder been blue, and the
tresses that swept it gold--I might for the moment have forgotten the
peril of my companions, and indulged only in the ecstasy of a selfish
love. But not with her--that strange being with whom chance had brought
me into such close companionship. For her I had no love-yearnings.
Even under the entwining of that beautiful arm, my sense was as cold, as
if I had been in the embrace of a statue. My thoughts were not there.

My captive comrades were uppermost in my mind. Her promise had given me
hope that they might yet be rescued. How? and by whom? Whither were we
going? and whose was the powerful hand from which help was to come? I
would have asked; but our rapid movement precluded all chance of
conversation. I could only form conjectures. These pointed to white
men--to some rendezvous of trappers that might be near. I knew there
were such. How else in such a place could _her_ presence be accounted
for? Even that would scarce explain an apparition so peculiar as that
of this huntress-maiden! Other circumstances contradicted the idea that
white men were to be my allies. There could be no band of trappers
strong enough to attack the dark host of Red-Hand--at least with the
chance of destroying it? She knew the strength of the