danger. "It was wilful and almost cruel,"
he thought "to leave them the prey of such tormenting fears on his
account;" and then the most painful fears for the safety of his beloved
companion took the place of less kindly thoughts, and sorrow filled
his heart. The broad moon now flooded the hills and vales with light,
casting broad checkering shadows of the old oaks' grey branches and now
reddened foliage across the ground.

Suddenly the old dog raises his head, and utters a short half angry
note: slowly and carefully he rises, disengaging himself gently from
the form of the sleeping girl, and stands forth in the full light of the
moon. It is an open cleared space, that mound beneath the pine-tree; a
few low shrubs and seedling pines, with the slender waving branches of
the late-flowering pearly tinted asters, the elegant fringed gentian,
with open bells of azure blue, the last and loveliest of the fall
flowers and winter-greens, brighten the ground with wreaths of shining
leaves and red berries.

Louis is on the alert, though as yet he sees nothing. It is not a full
free note of welcome, that Wolfe gives; there is something uneasy and
half angry in his tone. Yet it is not fierce, like the bark of angry
defiance he gives, when wolf, or bear, or wolverine is near.

Louis steps forward from the shadow of the pine branches, to the edge
of the inclined plane in the foreground. The slow tread of approaching
steps is now distinctly heard advancing--it may be a deer. Two figures
approach, and Louis moves a little, within the shadow again. A clear
shrill whistle meets his ear. It is Hector's whistle, he knows that, and
assured by its cheerful tone, he springs forward and in an instant is at
his side, but starts at the strange, companion that he half leads,
half carries. The moonlight streams broad and bright upon the shrinking
figure of an Indian girl, apparently about the same age as Catharine:
her ashy face is concealed by the long masses of raven black hair, which
falls like a dark veil over her features; her step is weak and unsteady,
and she seems ready to sink to the earth with sickness or fatigue.
Hector, too, seems weary. The first words that' Hector said were, "Help
me, Louis, to lead this poor girl to the foot of the pine; I am so tired
I can hardly walk another step."

Louis and his cousin together carried the Indian girl to the foot of the
pine. Catharine was just rousing herself from sleep, and she gazed with
a