the consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview; but
when her eyes encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell
before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she saw,
he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the other which
similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and their novel
situation would be likely to inspire in the young and ingenuous.

"Here," said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on Mabel, "are
the friends your worthy father has sent to meet you. This is a great
Delaware; and one who has had honors as well as troubles in his day. He
has an Indian name fit for a chief, but, as the language is not always
easy for the inexperienced to pronounce we naturally turn it into
English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You are not to suppose, however,
that by this name we wish to say that he is treacherous, beyond what
is lawful in a red-skin; but that he is wise, and has the cunning which
becomes a warrior. Arrowhead, there, knows what I mean."

While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two Indians gazed
on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora advanced and spoke to the
other in an apparently friendly manner.

"I like to see this," continued Pathfinder; "the salutes of two
red-skins in the woods, Master Cap, are like the hailing of friendly
vessels on the ocean. But speaking of water, it reminds me of my young
friend, Jasper Western here, who can claim to know something of these
matters, seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario."

"I am glad to see you, friend," said Cap, giving the young fresh-water
sailor a cordial grip; "though you must have something still to learn,
considering the school to which you have been sent. This is my niece
Mabel; I call her Magnet, for a reason she never dreams of, though
you may possibly have education enough to guess at it, having some
pretentions to understand the compass, I suppose."

"The reason is easily comprehended," said the young man, involuntarily
fastening his keen dark eye, at the same time, on the suffused face of
the girl; "and I feel sure that the sailor who steers by your Magnet
will never make a bad landfall."

"Ha! you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and that with
propriety; though, on the whole, I fear you have seen more green than
blue water."

"It is not surprising that we should get some of the phrases which
belong to the land; for we are seldom out of sight of it