little surprised when
Nathan, starting from the stirrup into which he had climbed, leaped again
to the ground, staring around him from right to left with every
appearance of alarm.

"Right, Peter!" he at last muttered, fixing his eye upon the further bank
of the river, a dark mass of hill and forest that rose in dim relief
against the clouded sky, overshadowing the whole stream, which lay like a
pitchy abyss betwixt it and the travellers,--"right, Peter! thee eyes is
as good as thee nose--thee is determined the poor women shall not be
murdered!"

"What is it you see?" demanded Forrester, "and why do you talk of
murdering?"

"Speak low, and look across the river," whispered the guide, in reply;
"does thee see the light glimmering among the rocks by the roadside?"

"I see neither rocks nor road--all is to my eyes confused blackness; and
as for a light, I see nothing--stay! No; 'tis the gleam of a fire-fly."

"The gleam of a fire-fly!" murmured Nathan, with tones that seemed to
mingle wonder and derision with feelings of a much more serious
character; "it is such a fire-fly as might burn a house, or roast a
living captive at the stake:--it is a brand in the hands of a 'camping
Shawnee! Look, friend, he is blowing it into a flame; and presently thee
will see the whole bank around it in a glow."

It was even as Nathan said. Almost while he was yet speaking, the light,
which all now clearly beheld, at first a point as small and faint as the
spark of a lampyris, and then a star scarce bigger or brighter than the
torch of a jack-o'-lantern, suddenly grew in magnitude, projecting a long
and lance-like, though broken, reflection over the wheeling current, and
then as suddenly shot into a bright and ruddy blaze, illumining hill and
river, and even the anxious countenances of the travellers. At the same
time, a dark figure, as of a man engaged feeding the flame with fresh
fuel, was plainly seen twice or thrice to pass before it. How many
others, his comrades, might be watching its increasing blaze, or
preparing for their wild slumbers, among the rocks and bushes where it
was kindled, it was impossible to divine. The sight of the fire itself in
such a solitary spot, and under such circumstances, even if no attendant
had been seen by it, would have been enough to alarm the travellers, and
compel the conviction that their enemies had not forgotten to station a
force at this neglected ford, as well as at the other more frequente