of mortification, humility, and, as his observers fancied, rebuked deception. When he first stepped on deck, Jasper cast one hurried, anxious glance around, as if curious to know the situation of the cutter; and that glance sufficed, it would seem, to let him into the secret of all her perils. At first he looked to windward, as is usual with every seaman; then he turned round the horizon, until his eye caught a view of the highlands to leeward, when the whole truth burst upon him at once. "I've sent for you, Master Jasper," said Cap, folding his arms, and balancing his body with the dignity of the forecastle, "in order to learn something about the haven to leeward. We take it for granted, you do not bear malice so hard, as to wish to drown us all, especially the women; and I suppose you will be man enough to help us run the cutter into some safe berth, until this bit of a gale has done blowing?" "I would die myself, rather than harm should come to Mabel Dunham," the young man earnestly answered. “I knew it!—I knew it!" cried the Pathfinder, clapping his hand kindly on Jasper's shoulder. "The lad is as true as the best compass that ever run a boundary, or brought a man off from a blind trail! It is a mortal sin to believe otherwise." "Humph!" ejaculated Cap, "especially the women! As if they were in any particular danger. Never mind, young man; we shall understand each other by talking like two plain seamen. Do you know of any port under our lee?" "None. There is a large bay at this end of the lake, but it is unknown to us all; and not easy of entrance.' "And this coast to leeward-it has nothing particular to recommend it, I suppose?" "It is a wilderness until you reach the mouth of the Niagara, in one direction, and Frontenac in the other. North and west, they tell me, there is nothing but forest and prairies, for a thousand miles.' "Thank God, then, there can be no French. Are there many savages, hereaway, on the land?" "The Indians are to be found in all directions; though they are nowhere very numerous. By accident, we might find a party at any point on the shore; or we might pass months there, without seeing one." "We must take our chances, then, as to the blackguards; but, to be frank with you, Master Western, if this little unpleasant matter about the French had not come to pass, what would you now do with the cutter?" "I am a much younger sailor than yourself, Master Cap," said Jasper, modestly, "and am hardly fitted to advise you." "Ay, ay; we all know that. In a common case, perhaps not. But this is an uncommon case, and a circumstance; and on this bit of fresh water, it has what may be called its peculiarities; and so, everything considered, you may be fitted to advise even your own father. At all events, you can speak, and I can judge of your opinions, agreeably to my own experience." "I think, sir, before two hours are over, the cutter will have to anchor." "Anchor!-not out here, in the lake?" "No, sir; but in yonder, near the land." "You do not mean to say, Master Oh-the-deuce, you would anchor on a lee shore, in a gale of wind!" "If I would save my vessel, that is exactly what I would do, Master Cap." "Whe-e-e-w! this is fresh water, with a vengeance. Harkee, young man, I've been a seafaring animal, boy and man, forty-one years, and I never yet heard of such a thing. I'd throw my ground-tackle overboard, before I would be guilty of so lubberly an act!" "That is what we do on this lake," modestly replied Jasper, "when we are hard pressed. I dare say we might do better, had we been better taught." "That you might, indeed! No: no man induces me to commit such a sin against my own bringing up. I should never dare show my face inside of Sandy Hook again, had I committed so knownothing an exploit. Why, Pathfinder, here, has more seamanship in him than that comes to. You can go below, again, Master Oh-thedeuce." Jasper quietly bowed and withdrew; still, as he passed down the ladder, the spectators observed that he cast a lingering, anxious look at the horizon to windward, and the land to leeward, and then disappeared with concern strongly expressed in every lineament of his face. CHAPTER XVII "He still refuted quirks he still repeats; COWPER S the soldier's wife was sick in her berth, Mabel Dunham was the only person in the outer cabin when Jasper returned to it: for, by an act of grace in the sergeant, he had been permitted to resume his proper place, in this part of the vessel. We should be ascribing too much simplicity of character to our heroine, if we said that she had felt no distrust of the young man, in consequence of his arrest; but we should also be doing injustice to her warmth of feeling, and generosity of disposition, if we did not add, that this distrust was insignificant and transient. As he now took his seat near her, his whole countenance clouded with the uneasiness he felt concerning the situation of the cutter, everything like suspicion was banished from her mind, and she saw in him only an injured man. "You let this affair weigh too heavily on your mind, Jasper," she said eagerly, or with that forgetfulness of self, with which the youthful of her sex are wont to betray their feelings, when a strong and generous interest has attained the ascendency; "no one, who knows you, can or does believe you guilty. Pathfinder says he will pledge his life for you." "Then you, Mabel," returned the youth, his eyes flashing fire, "do not look upon me as the traitor that your father seems to believe me to be?" "My dear father is a soldier, and is obliged to act as one. My father's daughter is not, and will think of you as she ought to think of a man who has done so much to serve her already." "Mabel, I'm not used to talking with one like you, or saying all I think and feel with any. I never had a sister, and my mother died when I was a child, so that I know little what your sex most likes to hear—" Mabel would have given the world to know what lay behind the teeming word, at which Jasper hesitated; but the indefinable and controlling sense of womanly diffidence made her suppress her womanly curiosity. She waited in silence for him to explain his own meaning. "I wish to say, Mabel," the young man continued, after a pause which he found sufficiently embarrassing, "that I am unused to the ways and opinions of one like you, and that you must imagine all I would add." Mabel had imagination enough to fancy anything, but there are ideas and feelings that her sex prefer to have expressed, before they yield them all their own sympathies, and she had a vague consciousness that these of Jasper's might properly be enumerated in the class; with a readiness that belongs to her her sex, therefore, she preferred changing the discourse to permitting it to proceed any further, in a manner so awkward and so unsatisfactory. "Tell me one thing, Jasper, and I shall be content," she said, speaking now with a firmness that denoted confidence not only in herself, but in her companion; "you do not deserve this cruel suspicion which rests upon you?" "I do not, Mabel," answered Jasper, looking into her full blue eyes with an openness and simplicity that might have shaken strong distrust. "As I hope for mercy hereafter, I do not." "I knew it-I could have sworn it," returned the girl, warmly. "And yet my father means well: but do not let this matter disturb you, Jasper." "There is so much more to apprehend from another quarter, just now, that I scarcely think of it." "Jasper!" "I do not wish to alarm you, Mabel, but if your uncle could be persuaded to change his notions about handling the Scud-and yet, he is so much older and more experienced than I am, that he ought, perhaps, to place more reliance on his own judgment than on mine." "Do you think the cutter in any danger?" demanded Mabel, quick as thought. "I fear so at least she would have been thought in great danger by us of the lake; perhaps an old seaman of the ocean may have means of his own to take care of her." "Jasper, all agree in giving you credit for skill in managing the Scud! You know the lake, you know the cutter; you must be the best judge of our real situation!" "My concern for you, Mabel, may make me more cowardly than common; but, to be frank, I see but one method of keeping the cutter from being wrecked in the course of the next two or three hours, and that your uncle refuses to take. After all, this may be my ignorance; for, as he says, Ontario is merely fresh water." "You cannot believe this will make any difference. Think of my dear father, Jasper! Think of yourself, of all the lives that depend on a timely word from you to save them!" "I think of you, Mabel, and that is more, much more, than all the rest put together," returned the young man, with a strength of expression and an earnestness of look, that uttered infinitely more than the words themselves. Mabel's heart beat quick, and a gleam of grateful satisfaction shot across her blushing features; but the alarm was too vivid and too serious to admit of much relief from happier thoughts. She did not attempt to repress a look of gratitude, and then she returned to the feeling that was naturally uppermost. "My uncle's obstinacy must not be permitted to occasion this disaster. Go once more on deck, Jasper, and ask my father to come into the cabin." While the young man was complying with this request, Mabel sat listening to the howling of the storm and the dashing of the water against the cutter, in a dread to which she had hitherto been a stranger. Constitutionally an excellent sailor, as the term is used among passengers, she had not, hitherto, bethought her of any danger, and had passed her time, since the commencement of the gale, in such womanly employments as her situation allowed; but now alarm was seriously awakened, she did not fail to perceive that never before had she been on the water in such a tempest. The minute or two that had elapsed ere the sergeant came appeared an hour, and she scarcely breathed when she saw him and Jasper descending the ladder in company. Quick as language could express her meaning, she acquainted her father with Jasper's opinion of their situation, and entreated him, if he loved her, or had any regard for his own life, or for those of his own men, to interfere with her uncle, and to induce him to yield the control of the cutter, again, to its proper commander. "Jasper is true, father," she added, earnestly, "and if false, he |