fell, the vastness of the new world impressed
the soldier as never before; not a creature had he met since leaving
the patroon village; she whom he sought might have been swallowed up
in the immensity of the wilderness. For the first time his task seemed
as if it might be to no purpose; his confidence of the morning had
gradually been replaced by consuming anxiety. He reproached himself
that he had not pressed his inquiries further at the patroon village,
but realized it was now too late for regrets; go on he must and
should.

Along the darkening road horse and rider continued their way. Only
at times the young man pulled at the reins sharply, as the animal
stumbled from sheer weariness. With one hand he stroked encouragingly
the foam-flecked arch of the horse's neck; the other, holding the
reins, was clenched like a steel glove. Leaving the brow of a
hill, the horseman expectantly fixed his gaze ahead, when suddenly on
his right, a side thoroughfare lay before him. As he drew rein
indecisively at the turn, peering before him through the gathering
darkness, a voice from the trees called out unexpectedly:

"Hitch up in here!"

At this peremptory summons the soldier gazed quickly in the direction
of the speaker. Through the grove, where the trees were so slender and
sparsely planted the eye could penetrate the thicket, he saw a band of
horsemen dismounting and tying their animals. There was something
unreal, grotesque even, in their appearance, but it was not until one
of their number stepped from the shadow of the trees into the clearer
light of the road that he discerned their head-dress and garb to be
that of Indians. Recalling all he had heard of the masquerading,
marauding excursions of the anti-renters, the soldier at once
concluded he had encountered a party of them, bent upon some nefarious
expedition. That he was taken for one of their number seemed equally
evident.

"Come!" called out the voice again, impatiently. "The patroon is at
the manor with his city trollop. It's time we were moving."

An exclamation fell from the soldier's lips. The patroon!--his
ill-disguised admiration for the actress!--his abrupt reappearance
the night of the temperance drama! Any uncertainty Saint-Prosper
might have felt regarding the identity of him he sought, or the
reason for that day's work, now became compelling certitude. But for
the tenants, he might have ridden by the old patroon house. As it
was, congratulating himse