I fancy Master McCleary will provide you with plenty."

"Say to my mother that I suffer for nothing save the opportunity to see
her. She knows full well what other words I would speak if she were
here."

With a hearty clasp of the hands the two friends I separated, Stephen
to make his way through the forest ten miles or more, and Walter to
resume the labour which might prove useless.

The would-be miller found it very difficult to continue at his task
during that day. More than once he almost decided to remain idle until
word should come that he was at liberty to return home; but then he
remembered the goal he had set for himself, and laboured more
industriously than before.

It was no longer possible, now he was alone, to move the larger logs,
and all he could do was to hew them into shape, without an attempt to
remove the timbers to the site of the mill.

The days passed slowly and wearily. The Sabbath seemed to have in it
three times the usual number of hours. He indulged in hunting only when
it became absolutely necessary he should have food, for the supply of
powder bid fair to be exhausted before the time set for Stephen's
return.

A week elapsed, and the young exile grew more cheerful. His friend must
soon come. As for Sewatis, Walter did not believe he would ever see him
again.

At the close of the eighth day, when the solitary supper had been
cooked and eaten, more as one performs an important duty than something
to be enjoyed, Walter was lying on the bed of boughs, dreaming of the
time he could return home without fear of an unjust arrest, when a
shadow came between his eyes and the fire.

Springing up in alarm, he seized the musket, which stood where it could
be reached handily, and made ready to defend himself, for it seemed
certain Sam Haines or one of his emissaries had come to carry him to
jail.

Sewatis stood before him.

One would have said that the Indian had been absent but a few moments,
and was wholly at a Joss to understand the look of surprise on the
boy's face.

"I thought you were never coming back!" Walter cried, in a tone of most
intense relief.

"Come to see mill," the Indian replied, as he seated himself and began
to eat a deer-steak which had been left near the fire.

"I am beginning to fear you will never see one of mine," the boy said,
despondently. "I have been foolish enough to think I could borrow as
much as would be needed, while money is so scarce in this province."