y or
resistance, in the joint names of power, of justice, and of the--" law
he would have added; but recollecting that this ominous word would
again provoke the hostility of the squatter's children, he succeeded in
swallowing it in good season, and concluded with the less dangerous and
more convertible term of "reason."

This extraordinary summons failed, however, of producing the desired
effect. It proved utterly unintelligible to his younger listeners,
with the exception of the few offensive terms, already sufficiently
distinguished, and though Ellen better comprehended the meaning of the
herald, she appeared as little moved by his rhetoric as her companions.
At those passages which he intended should be tender and affecting,
the intelligent girl, though tortured by painful feelings, had even
manifested a disposition to laugh, while to the threats she turned an
utterly insensible ear.

"I know not the meaning of all you wish to say, Dr. Battius," she
quietly replied, when he had ended; "but I am sure if it would teach
me to betray my trust, it is what I ought not to hear. I caution you to
attempt no violence, for let my wishes be what they may, you see I am
surrounded by a force that can easily put me down, and you know, or
ought to know, too well the temper of this family, to trifle in such
a matter with any of its members, let them be of what sex or age they
may."

"I am not entirely ignorant of human character," returned the
naturalist, prudently receding a little from the position, which he had,
until now, stoutly maintained at the very base of the hill. "But here
comes one who may know its secret windings still better than I."

"Ellen! Ellen Wade," cried Paul Hover, who had advanced to his elbow,
without betraying any of that sensitiveness which had so manifestly
discomposed the Doctor; "I didn't expect to find an enemy in you!"

"Nor shall you, when you ask that, which I can grant without treachery.
You know that my uncle has trusted his family to my care, and shall I
so far betray the trust as to let in his bitterest enemies to murder his
children, perhaps, and to rob him of the little which the Indians have
left?"

"Am I a murderer--is this old man--this officer of the States," pointing
to the trapper and his newly discovered friend, both of whom by this
time stood at his side, "is either of these likely to do the things you
name?"

"What is it then you ask of me?" said Ellen, wringing her hands, in