"I sometimes wish for peace again," said the Pathfinder, "when one
can range the forest without searching for any other enemy than
the beasts and fishes. Ah's me! many is the day that the Sarpent,
there, and I have passed happily among the streams, living on
venison, salmon, and trout without thought of a Mingo or a scalp!
I sometimes wish that them blessed days might come back, for it is
not my real gift to slay my own kind. I'm sartain the Sergeant's
daughter don't think me a wretch that takes pleasure in preying on
human natur'?"

As this remark, a sort of half interrogatory, was made, Pathfinder
looked behind him; and, though the most partial friend could
scarcely term his sunburnt and hard features handsome, even Mabel
thought his smile attractive, by its simple ingenuousness and the
uprightness that beamed in every lineament of his honest countenance.

"I do not think my father would have sent one like those you
mention to see his daughter through the wilderness," the young
woman answered, returning the smile as frankly as it was given,
but much more sweetly.

"That he wouldn't; the Sergeant is a man of feeling, and many is the
march and the fight that we have had -- stood shoulder to shoulder
in, as _he_ would call it -- though I always keep my limbs free
when near a Frencher or a Mingo."

"You are, then, the young friend of whom my father has spoken so
often in his letters?"