estowed a share also on her spirit: for, having checked
her horse an instant, and looked a little abashed at the sudden sight of
the strangers, she recovered herself in a moment, and riding boldly up,
she proceeded, without waiting to be questioned, to explain the cause of
her appearance. She had met the deserter, she said, returning to the
Station, and thinking it was not right the stranger lady should be left
without a guide in the woods, she had ridden after her to offer _her_
services.

"It was at least somewhat surprising," Roland could not avoid saying,
"that the fellow should have found you already equipt in the woods?"

At this innuendo, Telie was somewhat embarrassed, but more so, when,
looking towards Edith, as if to address her reply to her, she caught the
inquiring look of the latter, made still more expressive by the
recollection which Edith retained of the earnest entreaty Telie had made
the preceding night, to be taken into her service.

"I will not tell you a falsehood, ma'am," she said at last, with a firm
voice; "I was not on the road by chance; I came to follow you. I knew the
man you had to guide you was unwilling to go, and I thought he would
leave you, as he has done. And, besides, the road is not so clear as it
seems; it branches off to so many of the salt-licks, and the tracks are
so washed away by the rains, that none but one that knows it can be sure
of keeping it long."

"And how," inquired Edith, very pointedly,--for, in her heart, she
suspected the little damsel was determined to enter her service, whether
she would or not, and had actually run away from her friends for the
purpose,--"how, after you have led us to our party, do you expect to
return again to your friends?"

"If you will let me go with you as far as Jackson's Station" (the
settlement at which it was originally determined the emigrants should
pass the night), said the maiden humbly, "I will find friends there who
will take me home; and perhaps our own people will come for me, for they
are often visiting about among the Stations."

This declaration, made in a tone that convinced Edith the girl had given
over all hopes of being received into her protection, unless she could
remove opposition by the services she might render on the way, pointed
out also an easy mode of getting rid of her when a separation should be
advisable, and thus removed the only objection she felt to accept her
proffered guidance. As for Roland, howeve