y saddle, looking back upon the people now
entrusted to me--and as I looked, pride changed to apprehension, and a
quick prayer rose in my heart that I, a servant of my country, might
not prove unequal to the task set me.

Sobered, humbled, I rode on, asking in silence God's charity for my
ignorance, and His protection for her I loved, and for these human
souls entrusted to my care in the dark hours of the approaching trial.

North and northwest we traveled on a fair road, which ran through
pleasant farming lands, stretches of woods, meadows, and
stubble-fields. At first we saw men at work in the fields, not many,
but every now and again some slow Dutch yokel, with his sunburned face
turned from his labor to watch us pass. But the few farmhouses became
fewer, and these last were deserted. Finally no more houses appeared,
and stump-lots changed to tangled clearings, and these into second
growth, and these at last into the primeval forests, darkly
magnificent, through which our road, now but a lumber road, ran moist
and dark, springy and deep with the immemorial droppings of the trees.

Without command of mine, four lithe riflemen had trotted off ahead. I
now ordered four more to act on either flank, and called up part of the
rear-guard to string out in double file on either side of the animals
and wagon. The careless conversation in the ranks, the sudden laugh,
the clumsy skylarking all ceased. Tobacco-pipes were emptied and
pouched, flints and pans scrutinized, straps and bandoleers tightened,
moccasins relaced. The batmen examined ropes, wagon-wheels, and
harness, and I saw them furtively feeling for their hatchets to see
that everything was in place.

Thankful that I had a company of veterans and no mob of godless and
silly trappers, bawling contempt of everything Indian, I unconsciously
began to read the signs of the forest, relapsing easily into that
cautious custom which four years' disuse had nothing rusted.

And never had man so perfect a companion in such exquisite accord with
his every mood and thought as I had in Elsin Grey. Her sweet,
reasonable mind was quick to comprehend. When I fell silent, using my
ears with all the concentration of my other senses, she listened, too,
nor broke the spell by glance or word. Yet, soon as I spoke in low
tones, her soft replies were ready, and when my ever restless eyes
reverted, resting a moment on her, her eyes met mine with that perfect
confidence that pure souls give