he large tears coursing
down his cheeks.

At the first sight of the boy Mrs. Ronayne started, for she fancied
that she must have been laboring under the influence of a dream,
and that not Pee-to-tum, but himself, had used the violence
she experienced; but when she recalled all that had passed, perceived
her own disorder of dress, and remarked the unfeigned affliction
of the youth, she knew that it could not be so. Still deeply
agitated, she asked him anxiously where the Chippewa was, and
wherefore, he and not Wau-nan-gee had been in the summer-house as
promised, when she came in. With every appearance of profound sorrow
and sincerity, the youth replied that he knew not how Pee-to-tum
had got there--that he himself, after leaving the trap-door open
ready for the descent of Mrs. Ronayne, had gone to the further
extremity of the vault for the purpose of removing a large stone
which blocked up a hole admitting the fresh air from above near
the cottage, and that he was returning by this passage, which was
narrow but nearly six feet in height, when he heard the cry for
aid, and knowing it to be hers he had flown to her assistance, but
that the sound of his approaching footsteps must have alarmed the
Chippewa and caused him to fly--stopping motionless, perhaps, till
he, Wau-nan-gee, had passed him, and then escaping by the same
outlet. He it must have been whom Mrs. Headley had remarked stealing
across the garden just before she entered it with Maria.

Once reassured of the fidelity and truth of the boy, Mrs. Ronayne,
although painfully, distractingly ignorant of the extent to which
the insolence of Pee-to-tum had been carried, was too much absorbed
in the consideration of her husband's safety to lose sight of the
subject more immediately at her heart, in mere personal regrets
that now were of little avail. She said to Wau-nan-gee that the
place in which she then was would certainly have been well suited
to the purpose intended but for two reasons; firstly, that now
having been discovered by Pee-to-tum, it would no longer be secure;
and secondly, that her husband would never consent to abandon his
comrades to secure his own safety. She proposed, instead, that a
plan should be arranged to make them both prisoners while out on
the following day, and in such manner that it should be supposed
in the garrison that the capture had been effected by hostile
Indians; and to this the youth joyfully assented, stating that a
number of