ran back. She sprang over the fallen logs: she dashed aside
the boughs in her way, regardless of the wounds they inflicted. She
caught sight of two large wolves stealing towards her children. Were
they the first, or had others got there before them? She shrieked out--
she shouted--she dashed forward with her weapon to meet the savage
brutes. In another moment they would have reached her sleeping infants;
but, not waiting her approach, they fled, howling, to join the rest of
the pack at the fort. Her children were safe: she clasped them to her
bosom. They were all, now, that remained to her on earth. For their
sake she resolved to struggle on. But she had a fearful prospect before
her. Hundreds of miles from any civilised beings, or from any tribe of
natives on whose friendship she could rely; without means of procuring
food, starvation stared her in the face. Yet she did not despair. She
had the two horses: they must die. She might, perhaps, trap some
animals; she must also build a habitation to shelter herself and her
little ones. There was work enough before her.

She revolved these matters in her mind during the night. By early dawn
she mounted her horse, and, leading the other, rode away from the fatal
spot. For two days she travelled on, till she reached a range of hills,
among which she believed that she should be safe from discovery. She
knew too well that, should she encounter any of her husband's foes,
neither her sad history nor her sex could save her from the most cruel
treatment--scarcely, indeed, from death. At last she reached the
locality she sought, and fixed her abode in a deep hollow in the side of
the hill facing the sunny south. She had brought with her some
buffalo-robes and deer-skins: with these and a few cedar-branches, and
some pine and other bark, she constructed a wigwam by the side of a
sparkling stream which burst forth from the mountain-side.

No game was to be found, and she was compelled to kill the horses, and
smoke-dry their flesh. Their skins added somewhat to the comfort of her
hut. For three weary months the poor widow, with her orphans, dragged
on a sad existence. She saw her stock of food decreasing, and she might
have to travel far on foot before she could reach a place where more
could be obtained. May had arrived, and there was no time to be lost;
so, packing the remainder of her horse-flesh, with as many of her
blankets, and buffalo-robes, and other arti