vage sent de Beaujardin's small sword flying
into the air. The weapon of the Indian was already uplifted for the
deadly stroke when a strange fantastically-dressed figure passed,
noiselessly but swiftly, between the two combatants, and then the red
skin fell back, the fierce expression of his face changing to one of
awe, if not of terror. Then came another rush, in which Isidore
received a slight wound, and then by degrees the French regulars
succeeded in forcing back the Indians, but, unhappily, not until their
purpose had been but too thoroughly effected.

Isidore's wound did not prove serious, and in the course of a fortnight
he had nearly recovered from its effects, but he had mentioned it in a
letter to his father, and the consequence was an urgent injunction,
almost amounting to an order, that he should at once return home. This
did not reach him, however, until near the end of October, and it is by
no means improbable that he would have made his recovery an excuse for
disregarding his father's wishes but for other circumstances. It had
become necessary for Madame de Rocheval to visit the old country, and
Monsieur de Valricour had resolved to avail himself of that opportunity
to send Marguerite to France, in order that she might take up her abode
under his roof and find there the home which he had promised to her
dying father to provide for her. This may or may not have influenced
young Beaujardin; at all events he wrote to his father a letter
intimating a dutiful compliance with the order for his return, and
after resigning his appointment as aide-de-camp he made his
arrangements for his departure. Finding no immediate opportunity of
going down from Montreal to Quebec by the St. Lawrence, he resolved to
travel on horseback, and, after selecting a steady servant to accompany
him, he bade adieu to his old quarters and set out for Quebec.

Of all the glories of nature on this earth there is perhaps not one so
gorgeous as that expanse of wooded plain and slope and mountain, clad
in the magnificently varied tints of the Canadian fall of the year,
which met the eyes of Isidore when, towards the end of his journey, he
reined up his horse upon an elevated spot on the banks of the St.
Lawrence, a few miles above Quebec. Some three hundred feet below, the
broad and noble river glided along between precipitous heights, the
red-brown tint of which, interspersed with masses of clustering shrubs,
glowed in the yet warm