when you can show your skill, and when
Mabel will form some judgment concerning your true character."

"Will that be fair, Sergeant? Everybody knows that Killdeer seldom
misses; and ought we to make a trial of this sort when we all know what
must be the result?"

"Tut, tut, man! I foresee I must do half this courting for you. For
one who is always inside of the smoke in a skirmish, you are the
faintest-hearted suitor I ever met with. Remember, Mabel comes of a bold
stock; and the girl will be as likely to admire a man as her mother was
before her."

Here the Sergeant arose, and proceeded to attend to his never-ceasing
duties, without apology; the terms on which the guide stood with all in
the garrison rendering this freedom quite a matter of course.

The reader will have gathered from the conversation just related, one of
the plans that Sergeant Dunham had in view in causing his daughter to
be brought to the frontier. Although necessarily much weaned from the
caresses and blandishments that had rendered his child so dear to him
during the first year or two of his widowerhood, he had still a strong
but somewhat latent love for her. Accustomed to command and to obey,
without being questioned himself or questioning others, concerning the
reasonableness of the mandates, he was perhaps too much disposed to
believe that his daughter would marry the man he might select, while he
was far from being disposed to do violence to her wishes. The fact was;
few knew the Pathfinder intimately without secretly believing him to be
one of extraordinary qualities. Ever the same, simple-minded, faithful,
utterly without fear, and yet prudent, foremost in all warrantable
enterprises, or what the opinion of the day considered as such, and
never engaged in anything to call a blush to his cheek or censure on
his acts, it was not possible to live much with this being and not feel
respect and admiration for him which had no reference to his position
in life. The most surprising peculiarity about the man himself was the
entire indifference with which he regarded all distinctions which did
not depend on personal merit. He was respectful to his superiors from
habit; but had often been known to correct their mistakes and to reprove
their vices with a fearlessness that proved how essentially he regarded
the more material points, and with a natural discrimination that
appeared to set education at defiance. In short, a disbeliever in the
ability of