gently upon the blankets, and then
with a face that was livid with rage, grasped his musket which had
fallen to the ground.

"Which of you has dared to do this?" he asked, and the ominous click of
the lock of the gun proved that he was in earnest, and that all of his
worst passions were aroused.

No one answered. I looked towards Smith, expecting to hear him explain
every thing; but, to my surprise, he was silent; evidently too much
astonished at the unexpected turn which the affair had assumed, to
speak.

My look was misconstrued by the indignant convict, for before I could
speak, the long gun was levelled at the breast of Smith, and in another
moment all his hopes and fears would have been at an end, had not his
child started up and rushed towards him.

"Not him!" she shouted, wildly. "O God, not him!"

He dropped the muzzle of his gun, but his fierce eyes still glared from
Fred to me.

"Which of these two?"

He indicated us with a motion of the hand that held the gun, and looked
in his child's face for confirmation.

"Neither, father--so help me Heaven, neither. Without the aid of these
friends I should have perished."

He dropped the muzzle of the gun, and each of us felt thankful as he did
so, for we had witnessed the accuracy of his aim the day before, and
while the muzzle of the musket was pointed towards us, one of our lives
was not worth insuring.

"You are tired and distressed," the convict said, addressing his
daughter with a degree of tenderness that I thought wonderful after his
late outbreak.

"My head," she murmured, "feels as though it would burst; while my heart
is broken already."

"Rest a while, until I confer with your new-found friends, and then you
shall accompany me to my home. It is a hut, but it is all I have to
shelter you."

It was singular to witness how soon the recluse had once more become an
active man of the world, and for a while forgotten his Bible and
religious fanaticism.

"Tell me all that has happened," the convict said, motioning for us
three to follow him a short distance from his daughter, so that our
conversation could not be overheard by her.

Smith related the strange visit of the hound, and his leading us to the
scene of the murder--our finding his child in an insensible
condition--the story of her wrongs, and our surprise at finding that she
was in search of him. He listened with clinched teeth, and only
interrupted the narrative with groans of rage and