."

"And what should I do on the salt water? Hunt in your towns? Follow
the trails of people going and coming from market, and ambush dogs and
poultry? You are no friend to my happiness, Master Cap, if you would
lead me out of the shades of the woods to put me in the sun of the
clearings."

"I did not propose to leave you in the settlements, Pathfinder, but to
carry you out to sea, where a man can only be said to breathe freely.
Mabel will tell you that such was my intention, before a word was said
on the subject."

"And what does Mabel think would come of such a change? She knows that a
man has his gifts, and that it is as useless to pretend to others as to
withstand them that come from Providence. I am a hunter, and a scout,
or a guide, Saltwater, and it is not in me to fly so much in the face of
Heaven as to try to become anything else. Am I right, Mabel, or are you
so much a woman as to wish to see a natur' altered?"

"I would wish to see no change in you, Pathfinder," Mabel answered, with
a cordial sincerity and frankness that went directly to the hunter's
heart; "and much as my uncle admires the sea, and great as is all the
good that he thinks may come of it, I could not wish to see the best and
noblest hunter of the woods transformed into an admiral. Remain what you
are, my brave friend, and you need fear nothing short of the anger of
God."

"Do you hear this, Saltwater? do you hear what the Sergeant's daughter
is saying, and she is much too upright, and fair-minded, and pretty, not
to think what she says. So long as she is satisfied with me as I am,
I shall not fly in the face of the gifts of Providence, by striving to
become anything else. I may seem useless here in a garrison; but when
we get down among the Thousand Islands, there may be an opportunity to
prove that a sure rifle is sometimes a Godsend."

"You are then to be of our party?" said Mabel, smiling so frankly and so
sweetly on the guide that he would have followed her to the end of the
earth. "I shall be the only female, with the exception of one soldier's
wife, and shall feel none the less secure, Pathfinder, because you will
be among our protectors."

"The Sergeant would do that, Mabel, though you were not of his kin.
No one will overlook you. I should think your uncle here would like an
expedition of this sort, where we shall go with sails, and have a look
at an inland sea?"

"Your inland sea is no great matter, Master Pathfinder, and I