in his own silent and
peculiar manner, while anguish gleamed over lineaments which
seemed incapable of deception, even while agitated with emotions so
conflicting,--"Mabel! the Sergeant was wrong."

The pent-up feelings could endure no more, and the tears rolled down the
cheeks of the scout like rain. His fingers again worked convulsively at
his throat; and his breast heaved, as if it possessed a tenant of which
it would be rid, by any effort, however desperate.

"Pathfinder! Pathfinder!" Mabel almost shrieked; "anything but this,
anything but this! Speak to me, Pathfinder! Smile again, say one kind
word, anything to prove you can forgive me."

"The Sergeant was wrong!" exclaimed the guide, laughing amid his agony,
in a way to terrify his companion by the unnatural mixture of anguish
and light-heartedness. "I knew it, I knew it, and said it; yes, the
Sergeant was wrong after all."

"We can be friends, though we cannot be man and wife," continued Mabel,
almost as much disturbed as her companion, scarcely knowing what she
said; "we can always be friends, and always will."

"I thought the Sergeant was mistaken," resumed the Pathfinder, when a
great effort had enabled him to command himself, "for I did not think my
gifts were such as would please the fancy of a town-bred girl. It would
have been better, Mabel, had he not over-persuaded me into a different
notion; and it might have been better, too, had you not been so pleasant
and confiding like; yes, it would."

"If I thought any error of mine had raised false expectations in you,
Pathfinder, however unintentionally on my part, I should never forgive
myself; for, believe me, I would rather endure pain in my own feelings
than you should suffer."

"That's just it, Mabel, that's just it. These speeches and opinions,
spoken in so soft a voice, and in a way I'm so unused to in the woods,
have done the mischief. But I now see plainly, and begin to understand
the difference between us better, and will strive to keep down thought,
and to go abroad again as I used to do, looking for the game and the
inimy. Ah's me, Mabel! I have indeed been on a false trail since we
met."

"In a little while you will forget all this, and think of me as a
friend, who owes you her life."

"This may be the way in the towns, but I doubt if it's nat'ral to the
woods. With us, when the eye sees a lovely sight, it is apt to keep it
long in view, or when the mind takes in an upright and proper