t animation, sitting down occasionally
for short rests, and then resuming the march with renewed vigour, he
travelled over the mountains without any definite end in view, beyond
that to which we have already referred.

For some time after he was gone Betty stood gazing at the place in the
thicket where he had disappeared, as if she half expected to see him
return; then, heaving a deep sigh, and with a mingled expression of
surprise, disappointment, and anxiety on her fair face, she hurried away
to search for her father.

She found him returning to their tent with a load of firewood, and at
once told him what had occurred.

"He'll soon come back, Betty," said Paul, with a significant smile.
"When a young feller is fond of a lass, he's as sure to return to her as
water is sure to find its way as fast as it can to the bottom of a
hill."

Fred Westly thought the same, when Paul afterwards told him about the
meeting, though he did not feel quite so sure about the return being
immediate; but Mahoghany Drake differed from them entirely.

"Depend on't," he said to his friend Paul, when, in the privacy of a
retired spot on the mountain-side, they discussed the matter--"depend
on't, that young feller ain't made o' butter. What he says he will do
he'll stick to, if I'm any judge o' human natur. Of course it ain't for
me to guess why he should fling off in this fashion. Are ye sure he's
fond o' your lass?"

"Sure? Ay, as sure as I am that yon is the sun an' not the moon
a-shinin' in the sky."

"H'm! that's strange. An' they've had no quarrel?"

"None that I knows on. Moreover, they ain't bin used to quarrel.
Betty's not one o' that sort--dear lass. She's always fair an' above
board; honest an' straight for'ard. Says 'zactly what she means, an'
means what she says. Mister Tom ain't given to shilly-shallyin',
neither. No, I'm sure they've had no quarrel."

"Well, it's the old story," said Drake, while a puzzled look flitted
across his weather-beaten countenance, and the smoke issued more slowly
from his unflagging pipe, "the conduct o' lovers is not to be accounted
for. Howsever, there's one thing I'm quite sure of--that he must be
looked after."

"D'ye think so?" said Paul. "I'd have thought he was quite able to look
arter himself."

"Not just now," returned the trapper; "he's not yet got the better of
his touch o' starvation, an' there's a chance o' your friend Stalker, or
Buxley, which d'ye call him?"