it to a friend. You were my own
sister's husband, and poor little Magnet is my own sister's daughter;
and, living or dead, I shall always look upon you as a brother. It's a
thousand pities that you didn't lie off and on with the boats, and send
a canoe ahead to reconnoitre; in which case your command would have been
saved, and this disaster would not have befallen us all. Well, Sergeant,
we are _all_ mortal; that is some consolation, I make no doubt; and if
you go before a little, why, we must follow. Yes, that _must_ give you
consolation."

"I know all this, brother Cap; and hope I'm prepared to meet a soldier's
fate--there is poor Mabel--"

"Ay, ay, that's a heavy drag, I know; but you wouldn't take her with you
if you could, Sergeant; and so the better way is to make as light of
the separation as you can. Mabel is a good girl, and so was her mother
before her; she was my sister, and it shall be my care to see that her
daughter gets a good husband, if our lives and scalps are spared; for
I suppose no one would care about entering into a family that has no
scalps."

"Brother, my child is betrothed; she will become the wife of
Pathfinder."

"Well, brother Dunham, every man has his opinions and his manner of
viewing things; and, to my notion, this match will be anything but
agreeable to Mabel. I have no objection to the age of the man; I'm not
one of them that thinks it necessary to be a boy to make a girl happy,
but, on the whole, I prefer a man of about fifty for a husband; still
there ought not to be any circumstance between the parties to make them
unhappy. Circumstances play the devil with matrimony, and I set it down
as one that Pathfinder don't know as much as my niece. You've seen but
little of the girl, Sergeant, and have not got the run of her knowledge;
but let her pay it out freely, as she will do when she gets to be
thoroughly acquainted, and you'll fall in with but few schoolmasters
that can keep their luffs in her company."

"She's a good child--a dear, good child," muttered the Sergeant, his
eyes filling with tears; "and it is my misfortune that I have seen so
little of her."

"She is indeed a good girl, and knows altogether too much for poor
Pathfinder, who is a reasonable man and an experienced man in his
own way; but who has no more idea of the main chance than you have of
spherical trigonometry, Sergeant."

"Ah, brother Cap, had Pathfinder been with us in the boats this sad
affair might not