-drink rum till head fall down, and sleep like log."

"Might I not escape? Are there not several canoes on the island? Might I
not get one, and go and give my father notice of what has happened?"

"Know how to paddle?" demanded June, glancing her eye furtively at her
companion.

"Not so well as yourself, perhaps; but enough to get out of sight before
morning."

"What do then?--couldn't paddle six--ten--eight mile!"

"I do not know; I would do much to warn my father, and the excellent
Pathfinder, and all the rest, of the danger they are in."

"Like Pathfinder?"

"All like him who know him--you would like him, nay, love him, if you
only knew his heart!"

"No like him at all. Too good rifle--too good eye--too much shoot
Iroquois and June's people. Must get his scalp if can."

"And I must save it if I can, June. In this respect, then, we are
opposed to each other. I will go and find a canoe the instant they are
all asleep, and quit the island."

"No can--June won't let you. Call Arrowhead."

"June! you would not betray me--you could not give me up after all you
have done for me?"

"Just so," returned June, making a backward gesture with her hand, and
speaking with a warmth and earnestness Mabel had never witnessed in her
before. "Call Arrowhead in loud voice. One call from wife wake a warrior
up. June no let Lily help enemy--no let Indian hurt Lily."

"I understand you, June, and feel the nature and justice of your
sentiments; and, after all, it were better that I should remain here,
for I have most probably overrated my strength. But tell me one thing:
if my uncle comes in the night, and asks to be admitted, you will let me
open the door of the blockhouse that he may enter?"

"Sartain--he prisoner here, and June like prisoner better than scalp;
scalp good for honor, prisoner good for feeling. But Saltwater hide so
close, he don't know where he be himself."

Here June laughed in her girlish, mirthful way, for to her scenes of
violence were too familiar to leave impressions sufficiently deep
to change her natural character. A long and discursive dialogue now
followed, in which Mabel endeavored to obtain clearer notions of her
actual situation, under a faint hope that she might possibly be enabled
to turn some of the facts she thus learned to advantage. June answered
all her interrogatories simply, but with a caution which showed she
fully distinguished between that which was immaterial and that which
might