rtner, who was somewhere concealed within its
gloomy depths. Ah, how many an hour had he looked, but in vain. The
forest refused to give back the lost, nor did it breathe one word of
her, to ease the gloom which hung so heavily upon his soul.

A footfall caught his ear, and turning, he saw Teddy standing before
him. The face of the Irishman was as dejected as his own, and the
widowed man knew there was scarce need of the question:

"Have you heard anything, Teddy?"

"Nothing, sir, saving that nothing is to be learnt."

"Not my will, but thine, oh God, be done!" exclaimed the missionary,
reverently, and yet with a wailing sadness, that proved how
unutterable was his woe.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRAIL OF DEATH.

These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;
Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse,
But mount you presently.--SHAKESPEARE.

The trapper, after separating from the Irishman, pursued his way
through the woods with a slow tread, as if he were deliberating some
matter with himself. Occasionally he muttered and shook his head, in a
manner that showed his conscience was getting the better of the
debate, whatever it might be. Finally he paused.

"Yas, sir; it's a mean piece of business in me. 'Cause I want to cotch
a few beavers I must let this gal be, when she has been lost to her
husband already for three months. It's ongenerous, and _can't be
done_!" he exclaimed, emphatically. "What if I does lose a few
peltries when they're bringing such a good price down in St. Louey?
Can't I afford to do it, when there's a gal in the matter?"

He resumed his walk as slowly and thoughtfully as before, muttering to
himself.

"If I go, I goes alone; least I don't go with that Teddy, for he'd be
sartin to lose my ha'r as sure as we got onto a trail. There's no
calc'latin' the blunders of _such_ a man. How he has saved his own
scalp to this time is more nor I can tell, or himself neither, for
that matter, I guess. I've been on many a trail-hunt alone, and if I
goes--if I goes, why, _in course_ I does!" he added, impetuously.

The resolution once taken seemed to afford him unusual pleasure, as it
does with us all when the voice of conscience is a monitor that is
heeded. He was tramping toward the west, and now that the matter was
decided in his own mind, he paused again, as if he could better debate
other matters that must in the circumstances necessarily present
themselves.

"In the first place,