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pany. You cannot return to the settlements until a party is sent in, and that is not likely to happen until after my return. Well, Pathfinder, this is the first time I ever knew men on the trail of the Mingos, and you not at their head!"

"To be honest with you, sergeant," returned the guide, not without a little awkwardness of manner, and a perceptible difference in the hue of a face that had become so uniformly red by exposure, "I have not felt that it was my gift, this morning. In the first place, I very well know that the soldiers of the 55th are not the lads to overtake Iroquois in the woods, and the knaves did not wait to be surrounded, when they knew that Jasper had reached the garrison. Then, a man may take a little rest, after a summer of hard work, and no impeachment of his good will. Besides, the Sarpent is out with them, and if the miscreants are to be found at all, you may trust to his inmity and sight, the first being stronger, and the last nearly, if not quite, as good as my own. He loves the skulking vagabonds as little as myself; and, for that matter, I may say that my own feelin's towards a Mingo are not much more than the gifts of a Delaware grafted on a Christian stock. No, I thought I would leave the honor, this time, if honor there is to be, to the young ensign that commands, who, if he don't lose his scalp, may boast of his campaign in his letters to his mother when he gets in. I thought I would play idler once in my life."

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"And no one has a better right, if long and faithful service entitles a man to a furlough," returned the sergeant kindly. "Mabel will think none the worse of you, for preferring her company to the trail of the savages; and, I dare say, will be happy to give you a part of her breakfast, if you are inclined to eat. You must not think, girl, however, that the Pathfinder is in the habit of letting prowlers around the fort beat a retreat, without hearing the crack of his rifle."

"If I thought she did, sergeant, though not much. given to showy and parade evolutions, I would shoulder

Killdeer, and quit the garrison before her pretty eyes had time to frown. No, no Mabel knows me better, though we are but new acquaintances, for there has been no want of Mingos to enliven the short march we have already made in company."

"It would need a great deal of testimony, Pathfinder, to make me think ill of you in any way, and more than all in the way you mention," returned Mabel, coloring with the sincere earnestness with which she endeavored to remove any suspicion to the contrary from his mind. "Both father and daughter, I believe, owe you their lives, and believe me that neither will ever forget it."

"Thank you, Mabel, thank you with all my heart. But I will not take advantage of your ignorance neither, girl, and therefore shall say I do not think the Mingos would have hurt a hair of your head, had they succeeded by their deviltries and contrivances in getting you into their hands. My scalp, and Jasper's, and Master Cap's there, and the Sarpent's too, would sartainly have been smoked; but as for the sergeant's daughter, I do not think they would have hurt a hair of her head!"

"And why should I suppose that enemies known to spare neither women nor children, would have shown more mercy to me than to another? I feel, Pathfinder, that I owe you my life."

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"I say nay, Mabel; they would n't have had the heart to hurt you. No, not even a fiery Mingo devil would have had the heart to hurt a hair of your head! as I suspect the vampires to be, I do not suspect them of anything so wicked as that. They might have wished you- nay, forced you to become the wife of one of their chiefs, and that would be torment enough to a Christian young woman; but beyond that I do not think even the Mingos themselves would have gone.'

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“Well, then, I shall owe my escape from this great misfortune to you," said Mabel, taking his hand into her own, frankly and cordially and certainly in a way to delight the honest guide. "To me it would be a lighter evil to be killed than to become the wife of an Indian.”

"That is her gift, sergeant," exclaimed Pathfinder, turning to his old comrade, with gratification written on every lineament of his honest countenance, "and it will have its way. I tell the Sarpent, that no Christianizing will ever make even a Delaware a white man; nor any whooping and yelling convart a paleface into a redskin. That is the gift of a young woman born of Christian parents, and it ought to be maintained."

"You are right, Pathfinder; and so far as Mabel Dunham is concerned, it shall be maintained. But it is time to break your fasts, and if you will follow me, brother Cap, I will show you how we poor soldiers live, here on a distant frontier."

CHAPTER IX.

Now my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam.

SHAKESPEARE: As You Like It, II. i. 1.

SERGEANT DUNHAM made no empty vaunt when he gave the promise conveyed in the closing words of the last chapter. Notwithstanding the remote frontier position of the post, they who lived at it enjoyed a table that, in many respects, kings and princes might have envied. At the period of our tale, and indeed for half a century later, the whole of that vast region which has been called the West, or the new countries, since the war of the Revolution, lay a comparatively unpeopled desert, teeming with all the living productions of nature that properly belonged to the climate, man and the domestic animals excepted. The few Indians that roamed its forests then could produce no visible effects on the abundance of the game; and the scattered garrisons, or occasional hunters that here and there were to be met with on that vast surface, had no other influence than the

bee on the buckwheat field, or the humming-bird on the flower.

The marvels that have descended to our own times, in the way of tradition, concerning the quantities of beasts, birds, and fishes, that were then to be met with, on the shores of the Great Lakes in particular, are known to be sustained by the experience of living men, else we might hesitate about relating them; but having been eye-witnesses of some of these prodigies, our office shall be discharged with the confidence that certainty can impart. Oswego was particularly well placed to keep the larder of an epicure amply supplied. Fish of various sorts abounded in its river, and the sportsman had only to cast his line to haul in a bass, or some other member of the finny tribe, which then peopled the waters as the air above the swamps of this fruitful latitude is known to be filled with insects. Among others was the salmon of the lakes, a variety of that well known species that is scarcely inferior to the delicious salmon of northern Europe. Of the different migratory birds that frequent forests and waters, there was the same affluence, hundreds of acres of geese and ducks being often seen at a time, in the great bays that indent the shores of the lake. Deer, bears, rabbits, and squirrels, with divers other quadrupeds, among which was sometimes included the elk or moose, helped to complete the sum of the natural supplies, on which all the posts depended, more or less, to relieve the unavoidable privations of their remote frontier positions.

In a place where viands that would elsewhere be deemed great luxuries were so abundant, no one was excluded from their enjoyment. The meanest individual at Oswego habitually feasted on game that would have formed the boast of a Parisian table; and it was no more than a healthful commentary on the caprices of taste and of the waywardness of human desires, that the very diet which in other scenes would have been deemed the subject of envy and repinings, got to pall on the appetite. The coarse and regular food of the army, which it became

necessary to husband on account of the difficulty of transportation, rose in the estimation of the common soldier, and at any time he would cheerfully desert his venison, and ducks, and pigeons, and salmon, to banquet on the sweets of pickled pork, stringy turnips, and half-cooked cabbage.

The table of Sergeant Dunham, as a matter of course, partook of the abundance and luxuries of the frontier as well as of its privations. A delicious broiled salmon smoked on a homely platter, hot venison steaks sent up their appetizing odors, and several dishes of cold meats, all of which were composed of game, had been set before the guests in honor of the newly arrived visitors, and in vindication of the old soldier's hospitality.

“You do not seem to be on short allowance in this quarter of the world, sergeant," said Cap, after he had got fairly initiated into the mysteries of the different dishes; "your salmon might satisfy a Scotsman."

"It fails to do it, notwithstanding, brother Cap; for among two or three hundred of the fellows that we have in this garrison, there are not half a dozen who will not swear that the fish is unfit to be eaten. Even some of the lads who never tasted venison, except as poachers, at home, turn up their noses at the fattest haunches that we get here."

"Aye, that is Christian natur'," put in Pathfinder, "and I must say it is none to its credit. Now, a redskin never repines, but is always thankful for the food he gets, - whether it be fat or lean, venison or bear, wild turkey's breast or wild goose's wing. To the shame of us white men be it said that we look upon blessings without satisfaction, and consider trifling evils matters of great account.

"It is so with the 55th, as I can answer, though I cannot say as much for their Christianity," returned the sergeant. "Even the major himself, old Duncan of Lundie, will sometimes swear an oatmeal cake is better fare than the Oswego bass, and sigh for a swallow of Highland water, when, if so minded, he has the whole of Ontario to quench his thirst in."

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