men -- true red men -- be, too. There is little need to tell him
anything about it. Well, now you have met your father, do you find
the honest old soldier the sort of person you expected to find ?"

"He is my own dear father, and received me as a soldier and a father
should receive a child. Have you known him long, Pathfinder?"

"That is as people count time. I was just twelve when the Sergeant
took me on my first scouting, and that is now more than twenty
years ago. We had a tramping time of it; and, as it was before
your day, you would have had no father, had not the rifle been one
of my natural gifts."

"Explain yourself."

"It is too simple for many words. We were ambushed, and the Sergeant
got a bad hurt, and would have lost his scalp, but for a sort of
inbred turn I took to the weapon. We brought him off, however,
and a handsomer head of hair, for his time of life, is not to be
found in the rijiment than the Sergeant carries about with him this
blessed day."

"You saved my father's life, Pathfinder!" exclaimed Mabel,
unconsciously, though warmly, taking one of his hard, sinewy hands
into both her own. "God bless you for this, too, among your other
good acts!"

"Nay, I did not say that much, though I believe I did save his scalp.
A man might live without a scalp, and so I cannot say I saved his
life. Jasper may say that much consarning you; for without his eye