that is, he might appear so to one who did not know him for a scoundrel."

"The same, by heavens!" exclaimed Darrow, after musing a moment. "Yes, he must be the very fellow I saw not two hours ago, as I was skirting along Captain Hendee's clearing over yonder. He was walking with a woman near the woods.' "How! what woman? not Alma Hendee?"

"Can't say."

“No, no, it must have been the maid — and yet but confound the audacious scoundrel, how came he there, and so soon acquainted with either maid or mistress, unless my suspicions are right?"

"All that you can answer as well as I-though come to think more about the woman's make and gear, I'll be hanged if I do n't believe that it was the old man's daughter.'

"Fire and furies! it must be so.'

Why, what are you so wrathy about?" said Darrow, with a malicious smile. "You are not afraid the fellow will run away with your girl, are you, Jake?"

"My girl! who told you so? Not mine, unless I please, I would have you to know! No, no, sir, no fear of this poltroon in that. But still I can't exactly comprehend the movement. If he was reconnoitering with a view to ousting the old man, would he be walking out so familiarly with his daughter? It do n't look like it—no, it means something else, which must the sooner be seen to. And thanks to the rascal's boldness, he has put his fate in my power quicker than I expected." "How in what way?"

Why, don't you see, Bill?" said Sherwood, turning with a familiar and coaxing air to the minion, “ do n't you see how easily he can be entrapped, if he remains at Hendee's to-night, or repeats his visit ?"

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Ay, but how would you manage the business?" "You are a sergeant

take a file of men, go over, surround the house and take him. Your superior wont object.” "But how am I to know when he is to be found there?” "I will go over myself, reconnoiter as soon as dark, without showing myself to alarm him, and if I find the game be there, I will make a torch signal at the landing. You must keep watch, and as soon as you see the light, come over with your men. he is not there to-night, he will be soon: Alma Hendee is not a girl to be once seen and draw no second visit. Yes, by the powers of darkness, I have him at last! But supposing he does

If

not come into this trap, he certainly is prowling somewhere near; and you can prowl too, Bill. And at the last pinch — you are a good rifle shot, I think, Darrow?"

"Ha ha! out at last, then! I thought it would finally come to that. Jake Sherwood, you are a book that I can read by looking on the cover.”

"Then you know what I would have you do.”

"Yes, but where would be the reward in that case? The Yorkers do n't pay for heads that have been bored, do they?" "The governor's proclamation do n't say delivered alive, but only delivered. But whatever question there might be about that in some cases, there shall be no failure in this. I have influence enough at head quarters to see that your bill is footed, if you bring this about, in any shape."

"And you will do it?"

"Upon honor."

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Upon interest, you mean.'

"Upon both, if you please."

"That will do, and for this d-n'd good reason—if the security is weak, I know of that which can easily be made to enforce the bargain. Jake Sherwood, I am your man."

"Now that looks like a cheerful good will, without your usual drawback of grumbling. Well, we understand each other, do we?"

“Hum! a d―n'd sight too well, Jake!"

Why, we part friends, do n't we?"

But I

"Yes, and it rests with you whether we remain so. must be back to the fort. And as it is getting dusk, you go directly over, I suppose?"

"Soon but you understand that we are to try to cage him at Hendee's first. Remember to look out for the signal!'

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Ay, ay!"

"Yes, my suspicions were right about him and the girl," soliloquized the plotting agent, after the departure of his reckless minion. “But never mind, I have put the bloodhound on the scent; and if the animal do n't forget his own nature, in addition to putting a stop to this business, I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing that haughty leader of these savage rebels atone for every blow which he caused to be inflicted on me at that accursed lake! And that jeering lieutenant and all the rest, reward or no reward, shall have their turn next. And then their executioner, if I can contrive to make the hated scoundrel such, must be made in some shape to follow them. Perhaps, however, he may

be disposed of in the war said to be brewing. At all events, he is too dangerous a fellow to my interests to be suffered to remain here long, to say nothing of the insults which I am compelled to bear, and seem to take in good part, from his devil's tongue. I wonder, though, what made him undertake this dangerous business so readily?—the reward, I suppose; well, let him have

it, revenge is dearer to me than money. But perhaps I can contrive to get both—if I could but manage, after securing this renegade Captain to make Darrow and some of the rest mutual executioners ha! that would be glorious! But of that hereafter, now for the first object."

So saying, and partially arousing himself from his reverie, he proceeded along the shore a few rods to a point where he had left his skiff, and, entering it, began to pull slowly for the residence, on the opposite shore, already described, to which we will next take the reader, for the purpose of introducing some new characters, and making the place the future scene of a large portion of the incidents to follow.

CHAPTER IX.

"I prythee, daughter, do not make me mad."

It was on the second evening after the incidents related in the two preceding chapters occurred, that an elderly gentleman sat at the door of the pleasantly situated cottage before described, quietly indulging in the habit-made luxury of puffing the Indian weed, as, enjoying the bland breezes of the evening, he calmly looked out upon the broad expanse of the lake, and the diversified objects of the landscape around, over which the shades of night were now rapidly gathering. Now his eyelids would droop, and his head sink, slightly, towards his breast, under the sedative influence of the narcotic fumes he was imbibing, aided by the ceaseless croakings of the frogs, whose evening choruses rose from the marshy shores of the lake in drowsy monotony on the ear. And now he would partially arouse, and his eye would

light up, for an instant, with returning consciousness, as his ear caught the new note of some bird of passage just returned from his hibernal flight to the warm south, and now for the first time heard, marking the progress of the season. The man might have been sixty, though his appearance indicated a greater number of years; for his head was nearly white with the frosts that the fatigues and privations of the camp, in which the vigor of his manhood had been spent, had prematurely sprinkled on his head. And yet, his erect figure, and keenly flashing eye, as his attention became aroused to objects around him, betokened a spirit still unbroken, and intellects still unimpaired, in despite of a shattered constitution, and the ravages which hardship and time had depicted on his thin and war-worn visage. Though at the same time, the rapid play of the muscles of his face, and the combined expression of every feature of his countenance, evidently denoted that, with fine sensibilities, and much that was generous and noble, he naturally possessed a sanguine temperament and a fiery disposition, which his growing infirmities had rendered still more irascible. And such was indeed the case with Captain Hendee, the person whose appearance we have been endeavoring t describe. His life had been one which had been checkered with no ordinary vicissitudes. He had been an officer in the colonial army, and out in most of that fearful struggle with the French and Indians, that, with little intermission, spread death and desolation through all the borders of the English colonies in America from 1744 to 1760; and he had suffered imprisonment, sickness, and all but death, in that terrible warfare. He had also known the extremes of affluence and poverty in his pecuniary affairs; while great felicity, and uncommon bereavements, had marked his domestic relations. He had buried two wives, each, while she was spared him, the charm of his existence. And, to add still more to his cup of sorrows, a darling son, who had been entrusted to the care of an uncle in his father's absence, soon unaccountably disappeared, having been abducted and murdered, it was supposed, by some lurking band of Indians. One daughter, the child of his last wife, was now all that remained to him to smooth the pillow of age, and prop his declining years. And well did that beloved and truly lovely daughter fulfil the filial trust thus imposed. Aware of her parent's infirmities, as well of temper as of body, she became the gentle soother of the one, and the watchful nurse of the other. And ever manifesting the most affectionate solicitude for his welfare, and always assiduously attentive to his slightest wants and wishes, while readily over

looking the harshness, which in his fits of petulance, he occasionally showed her, and which she generally answered only with a tear, she gained over him, by this, and the super-added influence of his affection for her, and his sense of dependence on her for happiness, a control for his good, that the whole world united would have failed in attempting to obtain.

He

A discreet and demure maiden of about thirty, an old servant, who lived with them in more prosperous days, still remained with them, and, with one more person, scarcely less regarded, completed all the permanent members of the family. That other person was no other than Neshobee, the young Indian, with whom the reader has already had a partial acquaintance, without having been before apprised, however, we believe, of his residence. was one of Captain Hendee's trophies of war, having been captured in an onset on an Indian lodge, to which a band of murderers had been traced, after one of their massacres on the frontier settlement. The Indians being taken wholly by surprise, and nearly all slain by the first fire, this lad was found burrowed unhurt in a pile of dry leaves in one of their haunts, and secured by the victors; when the Captain declared, with a sort of melancholy jest, that as the hell-hounds, a year or two before, had deprived him of a son of about the same age, he would for once follow their custom of supplying the place of the slain by adopting one captured from the enemy. And accordingly he took the boy, then six or eight years old, back with him to his post, and finally to his family, with whom the captive had ever since resided.

The domicil of this strikingly contrasted family was a common cottage, constructed after the fashion of the better sort of houses in the settlement, of hewn timber, so exactly squared and laid together, in the present instance, as to make smooth, compact walls, neatly white-washed without, and tightly ceiled with boards within. The interior, which was divided into two principal rooms, parlor and kitchen, with a range of bed rooms and other small apartments abreast, exhibited an odd mingling of the relics of refined life, with the crude substitutes for furniture, and the various articles usually found in the houses of a border settlement. On the high mantel-piece of the best room stood the wide spreading antlers of some noble buck, the tips of the various branches being ornamented with curious sea-shells, the egg-shells of rare birds, and other devices of the tasteful young mistress of the establishment. Rich mahogany chairs were cushioned with the feathered skins of the loon, a large water-fowl abounding in