re and Amoahmeh to assist him in carrying it. A
short hour's march brought them to another creek sufficiently large to
float their skiff, and soon afterwards they came upon a second lake,
which they traversed from end to end. Then, as they neared the shore,
Isidore's ears were greeted by a well-known and most welcome sound--the
challenge of a French sentinel. They had come upon the detachment sent
out from Fort Chambly.

Great was the surprise of the French officer, who was in command of the
little force, on seeing his friend Isidore at such a time and place and
in such company. All this was of course quickly explained, and the
young soldier and his guide were soon comfortably housed, but not until
they had committed poor Amoahmeh, with many an expression of their
gratitude for her kindly help, to the care of an Indian family, into
whose wigwam she was received with all the awe that her infirmity was
sure to command. It may well be believed that after such a day it was
not long before all three were asleep and dreaming of old friends and
old homes, either amid the grand and gloomy forests of the New World or
the sunny slopes and smiling vineyards of the Old.

[Illustration: Tailpiece to Chapter IV]

[Illustration: Headpiece to Chapter V]

CHAPTER V.

At sunrise on the following morning Isidore and his guide started for
Chambly. Happily, Amoahmeh was still asleep. Accustomed as she was to
the woods, the great distance they had traversed on the preceding day,
and perhaps the excitement she had undergone, had told on her slight
frame, and nature had insisted on her claim to a longer rest than
usual. What the poor child's feelings may have been when she awoke and
found herself once more alone in the world who shall say? Possibly the
unwonted exercise of some still active faculties the day before had
dulled her sensibility, for outwardly, at least, she seemed to have
forgotten all the past, and went about as though she had never known
any other home, and as though the strange faces that she saw around her
had looked upon her all her life. But the earnest yet plaintively
uttered, "Where are they?" no longer fell from her lips. It had been
answered, and amid the darkness that enveloped that young loving soul,
it may well be that there was one glimmering ray of light that kept
some smouldering embers of reason still alive.

Isidore's mission was completed without further adventure, and after
delive