addressed her:

"Dear Elster, I have not broken my fast since morning. Let me have
something to eat and I will set out for the fort at once. It is but four
or five miles to the nearest house on the way, and you can easily walk
with me that far, there to remain until my return. At present I see not
what better course is left us to follow."

A cold supper was set before him at once. While he was eating it Elster
went and busied herself about the house, preparatory to their departure.
The meal was soon dispatched, and when he had looked carefully to his
rifle and hunting accoutrements, to reassure himself that all was in
good order for service, Jervis went to assist his wife in making such
disposition of their little household concerns as their absence should
render necessary. To his surprise, he found her preparing to accompany
him all the way.

"Hardly, dear Elster!" said he. "The horses have leaped the fence and
strayed out into the woods, so that I shall be obliged to go afoot, and
for you to walk with me is quite out of the question. Twenty long
miles--many of them rough and steep, all of them dark and dangerous! You
could hardly endure it to the end."

"If the child has walked it," rejoined Elster, "so may the mother; and
if he has not, and is lost to us forever, then this lonely house is our
home no longer! I return to it no more."

Though of a gentle and yielding nature under ordinary circumstances,
Elster could meet a great trial, like the present one, with a spirit
firm and courageous enough; and knowing this, her husband forbore any
further remonstrance to her determination. The sun had set and the moon
was rising, when, having made their solitary dwelling as secure as
possible, they set out on their melancholy journey. In those days the
buffalo traces, as they were called, formed the only highways of the
wilderness, and the one our poor friends were now following led, for the
greater part of the way, through a dense and tangled forest, where the
moonlight showed itself only in straggling beams and shed but a ghostly
glimmer. At intervals the sombre wildness of the scene would be relieved
by a bluegrass glade, all agleam with moonbeams and glistering dew
drops, saving where flecked with the shadows of clumped or scattered
trees. Pleasing, however, as was the contrast they presented to the
savage solitudes around them, these bright spots left upon the spirit an
impression of sadness quite peculiar. Each had