"My God! It is Isaac!" exclaimed Colonel Zane, when he saw the white
face. "Poor boy, he looks as if he were dead. Are you sure he spoke?
Of course he must have spoken for you could not have known. Yes, his
heart is still beating."

Colonel Zane raised his head from the unconscious man's breast,
where he had laid it to listen for the beating heart.

"Clarke, God bless you for saving him," said he fervently. "It shall
never be forgotten. He is alive, and, I believe, only exhausted, for
that wound amounts to little. Let us hurry."

"I did not save him. It was the dog," Alfred made haste to answer.

They carried the dripping form to the house, where the door was
opened by Mrs. Zane.

"Oh, dear, another poor man," she said, pityingly. Then, as she saw
his face, "Great Heavens, it is Isaac! Oh! don't say he is dead!"

"Yes, it is Isaac, and he is worth any number of dead men yet," said
Colonel Zane, as they laid the insensible man on the couch. "Bessie,
there is work here for you. He has been shot."

"Is there any other wound beside this one in his arm?" asked Mrs.
Zane, examining it.

"I do not think so, and that injury is not serious. It is lose of
blood, exposure and starvation. Clarke, will you please run over to
Captain Boggs and tell Betty to hurry home! Sam, you get a blanket
and warm it by the fire. That's right, Bessie, bring the whiskey,"
and Colonel Zane went on giving orders.

Alfred did not know in the least who Betty was, but, as he thought
that unimportant, he started off on a run for the fort. He had a
vague idea that Betty was the servant, possibly Sam's wife, or some
one of the Colonel's several slaves.

Let us return to Betty. As she wheeled her pony and rode away from
the scene of her adventure on the river bluff, her state of mind can
be more readily imagined than described. Betty hated opposition of
any kind, whether justifiable or not; she wanted her own way, and
when prevented from doing as she pleased she invariably got angry.
To be ordered and compelled to give up her ride, and that by a
stranger, was intolerable. To make it all the worse this stranger
had been decidedly flippant. He had familiarly spoken to her as "a
pretty little girl." Not only that, which was a great offense, but
he had stared at her, and she had a confused recollection of a gaze
in which admiration had been ill disguised. Of course, it was that
soldier Lydia had been telling her about. Strangers were of so rare