as people count time. I was just twelve when the Sergeant took
me on my first scouting, and that is now more than twenty years ago.
We had a tramping time of it; and, as it was before your day, you would
have had no father, had not the rifle been one of my natural gifts."

"Explain yourself."

"It is too simple for many words. We were ambushed, and the Sergeant got
a bad hurt, and would have lost his scalp, but for a sort of inbred turn
I took to the weapon. We brought him off, however, and a handsomer head
of hair, for his time of life, is not to be found in the rijiment than
the Sergeant carries about with him this blessed day."

"You saved my father's life, Pathfinder!" exclaimed Mabel,
unconsciously, though warmly, taking one of his hard, sinewy hands into
both her own. "God bless you for this, too, among your other good acts!"

"Nay, I did not say that much, though I believe I did save his scalp.
A man might live without a scalp, and so I cannot say I saved his life.
Jasper may say that much consarning you; for without his eye and arm
the canoe would never have passed the rift in safety on a night like
the last. The gifts of the lad are for the water, while mine are for the
hunt and the trail. He is yonder, in the cove there, looking after the
canoes, and keeping his eye on his beloved little craft. To my eye,
there is no likelier youth in these parts than Jasper Western."

For the first time since she had left her room, Mabel now turned her
eyes beneath her, and got a view of what might be called the foreground
of the remarkable picture she had been studying with so much pleasure.
The Oswego threw its dark waters into the lake, between banks of some
height; that on its eastern side being bolder and projecting farther
north than that on its western. The fort was on the latter, and
immediately beneath it were a few huts of logs, which, as they could
not interfere with the defence of the place, had been erected along the
strand for the purpose of receiving and containing such stores as were
landed, or were intended to be embarked, in the communications between
the different ports on the shores of Ontario. Two low, curved, gravelly
points had been formed with surprising regularity by the counteracting
forces of the northerly winds and the swift current, and, inclining from
the storms of the lake, formed two coves within the river: that on the
western side was the most deeply indented; and, as it also had the most