as fancied some one
wanted to force you out of the _Scud_, where he imagined you had taken
up your abode. Nay, the lad has even acknowledged that he often weeps at
the thought that you are likely to spend your days with another, and not
with him."

"Jasper!"

"It's solemn truth, Mabel, and it's right you should know it. Now stand
up, and choose 'atween us. I do believe Eau-douce loves you as well as
I do myself; he has tried to persuade me that he loves you better, but
that I will not allow, for I do not think it possible; but I will own
the boy loves you, heart and soul, and he has a good right to be heard.
The Sergeant left me your protector, and not your tyrant. I told him
that I would be a father to you as well as a husband, and it seems to me
no feeling father would deny his child this small privilege. Stand up,
Mabel, therefore, and speak your thoughts as freely as if I were the
Sergeant himself, seeking your good, and nothing else."

Mabel dropped her hands, arose, and stood face to face with her two
suitors, though the flush that was on her cheeks was feverish, the
evidence of excitement rather than of shame.

"What would you have, Pathfinder?" she asked; "Have I not already
promised my poor father to do all you desire?"

"Then I desire this. Here I stand, a man of the forest and of little
larning, though I fear with an ambition beyond my desarts, and I'll
do my endivors to do justice to both sides. In the first place, it is
allowed that, so far as feelings in your behalf are consarned, we love
you just the same; Jasper thinks his feelings _must_ be the strongest,
but this I cannot say in honesty, for it doesn't seem to me that it
_can_ be true, else I would frankly and freely confess it, I would. So
in this particular, Mabel, we are here before you on equal tarms. As for
myself, being the oldest, I'll first say what little can be produced in
my favor, as well as ag'in it. As a hunter, I do think there is no man
near the lines that can outdo me. If venison, or bear's meat, or even
birds and fish, should ever be scarce in our cabin, it would be more
likely to be owing to natur' and Providence than to any fault of mine.
In short, it does seem to me that the woman who depended on me would
never be likely to want for food. But I'm fearful ignorant! It's true
I speak several tongues, such as they be, while I'm very far from being
expart at my own. Then, my years are greater than your own, Mabel; and
the circums