f with
preparations for a meal.

It was pleasant to be engaged with familiar objects and
duties after passing through all sorts of horrors, and
Dorothy entered cheerfully on her self-imposed tasks.
She quickly lit a fire, and then went out with a large
pitcher to the inevitable well found on all Canadian
homesteads. She had to draw the water up in the bucket
some forty or fifty feet, but she was no weakling, and
soon accomplished that. To fill and swing the camp-kettle
across the cheery fire was the work of a minute or two.
She then got the provisions out of the sleighs, and before
the three men returned from looking after the horses she
had laid out a meal on the well-kept deal table, which
she had Covered with an oilcloth. The tea had been made
by this time, and the four steaming pannikins filled with
the dark, amber-hued nectar looked truly tempting. The
rude benches were drawn close to the table, and the room
assumed anything but a deserted appearance.

It would have been quite a festive repast only that the
thought of Sergeant Pasmore's probable fate would obtrude
itself. Certainly they could not count upon the security
of their own lives for one single moment. It was just as
likely as not that a party of rebels might drive up as
they sat there and either shoot them down or call upon
them to surrender. Dorothy, despite her endeavours to
banish all thoughts of the situation from her mind, could
not free herself from the atmosphere of tragedy and
mystery that shrouded the fate of the captured one. Her
reason told her it was ten chances to one that the rebels
would promptly shoot him as a dangerous enemy. Still, an
uncanny something that she could not define would not
allow her to believe that he was dead: rather was she
inclined to think that he was that very moment alive,
but in imminent peril of his life and thinking of her.
So strongly at times did this strange fancy move her that
once she fully believed she heard him call her by name.
She put down the pannikin of tea from her lips untasted,
and with difficulty suppressed an almost irresistible
impulse to cry out. But there was no sound to be heard
outside save the dull thud of some snow falling from the
eaves.

They had just finished their meal when suddenly a terrible
din was heard outside. It seemed to come from the horse
corral. There was a thundering of hoofs, a few equine
snorts of fear, a straining and creaking of timber, a
loud crash, and then