ow, and I will meet my doom, or achieve my safety,'
Marie said; but the young man answered, 'Nay, I will go
over the fall too: I can then be of some service to you.'
So he swam along by the canoe's side directing my daughter,
and shaping the course of the prow on the very brink of
the fall. Then all shot over together. The canoe and
Marie, and the young man were buried far under the terrible
mass of water, but they soon came to the surface again,
when the heroic stranger saved my daughter, and through
the fury of the mad churning waters, landed her safe and
unhurt upon the bank. The young man was Thomas Scott,
whom you saw here this morning. Is it any wonder, think
you, that when Marie sees wild turkeys upon the prairie,
she keeps the knowledge of it to herself till she gets
the ear of her deliverer? Think you, now, that it is
strange he should be looked upon by us as a benefactor?"

"A very brave act, indeed, on the part of this young
man," replied the swarthy M. Riel. "He has excellent
judgment, I perceive, or he would not so readily have
calculated that no harm could come to any one who could
swim well by being carried over the falls."

Marie's eyes flashed indignantly at this cold blooded
discounting of the generous, uncalculating bravery of
her young preserver.

"I doubt, Monsieur, she said, whether if you had been on
the bank where Monsieur Scott jumped in, you would have
looked upon the going over of the fall as an exploit so
free of danger as you describe it now. As a matter of
fact, there _were_ many half-breeds there, many of whom,
no doubt, were as brave as yourself, but I should have
perished in the fans of the mill if I had to depend upon
the succour of any one of them."

"Mademoiselle," he retorted with a fierce light in his
eye, "I am not a half-breed."

"O, pardonnez mois, I thought from your features and the
straightness of your coal-black hair, that you were."
Riel's blood was nigh unto boiling in his veins, but he
had craft enough to preserve a tolerably unruffled
exterior.

"And in return for this great bravery, ma petite demoiselle
has, I suppose, given her heart to her deliverer?"

"I think Monsieur is impertinent; and I shall ask my
father to forbid him to continue to address me in such
a manner."

"A thousand pardons; I did not mean to pain, but only to
chaff, your brave daughter. I think that Monsieur Scott
is most fortunate in having a friend, a beautiful friend,
so loyal to h