ed in
hunting expeditions on his own responsibility; sometimes being absent
all day and nearly all night. But he was not off hunting then, and
Pierre had told a deliberate falsehood, when he said that he had seen
him in pursuit of a rabbit. The Ranchero had determined upon a course of
action which he knew he could not follow out so long as the dog was at
liberty, and Marmion was, at that very moment, lying bound and muzzled
under one of the corn-cribs, almost within hearing of his master's
voice.

Frank slowly retraced his steps toward the house, feeling more nervous
and uneasy than ever. In Marmion he had an ally that could be depended
on in any emergency; and, if the dog had been at his side, he would have
felt perfectly safe. But he was not the one to indulge long in gloomy
thoughts without a cause, and in order to drive them away, he lighted
his lamp, and, drawing his easy-chair upon the porch, amused himself
until nine o'clock with his guitar. The music not only served to soothe
his troubled feelings, but also had the effect of banishing his
suspicions to a great extent, and left him in a much more cheerful frame
of mind.

"How foolish I have been," said he, to himself. "Because Pierre is ugly,
like all the rest of his race, and because he always carries a knife in
his belt, and hates Marmion, I have been willing to believe him capable
of any villainy. I don't suppose he has thought of that gold since he
saw me lock it up."

As Frank said this, he pulled his chair into the room, and selecting
Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" from the numerous volumes in the
library, he dismissed all thoughts of the Ranchero, and sat down to read
until he should become sleepy. He soon grew so deeply interested in his
book, that he did not hear the light step that sounded on the porch, nor
did he see the dark, glittering eyes which looked steadily at him
through the open window. He saw them a moment afterward, however, for,
while he was absorbed in that particular part of the fight at Glen's
Falls, where Hawk-Eye snapped his unloaded rifle at the Indian who was
making off with the canoe in which the scout had left his ammunition, a
figure glided quickly but noiselessly into the room, and stopped behind
the boy's chair.

"Now, my opinion is that Hawk-Eye was not much of a backwoodsman, after
all," said Frank, who was in the habit of commenting upon and
criticising every thing he read. "Why did he leave his extra powder-horn
in hi