taken by surprise, or excited by joy or anger, he sprang up, kicked the chairs and people out of his way, and rushed towards a young man who had just entered the verandah. He pressed him to his breast without saying a word, and drew him to the seat where he had waited so long in painful expectation.

The young man was dressed and armed like the beaver trapper, Jack Williams, who had just embraced him so cordially. He might be about nineteen or twenty years of age. His figure was noble, tall, and powerful; his complexion, although tanned by exposure in the wild life he had led, was still blooming and fresh; his features were surprisingly fine, with a mingled expression of decision and mildness. He was the favourite of Jack Williams, who often said of him, "He can swim like a fish, he's as swift as an Indian arrow, his eye is as keen as an eagle's, his arm is as strong as the paw of a grizzly bear, and his aim never misses; his movementsare as easy and noiseless as those of a Blackfoot Indian; and compared with the sly way in which he creeps on a foe, a Sioux Indian is as clumsy as an old horse."

That was, no doubt, an exaggerated picture, and prompted by the great friendship which Jack Williams had for him; but the principal part of it was certainly true of the young man, who had endeared himself to the old beaver trapper by many years of companionship in wilderness life and danger.

When the old man had taken the youth to

a seat, he suddenly stood still, and looked at the black silk handkerchief which hung loosely round his neck; then whispered quietly, that no one might hear him, "Why have you changed that red handkerchief that suited you so well for a black one, my boy? what does it mean?” He looked up at Ralph Redstone (for it was he) before he could answer, and saw in his eyes a deep earnestness instead of the usual lively expression.

“Yes,” said the young man, “there is a reason for it, and a very bad one——”

"How! What do you say!" exclaimed Jack, interrupting him; "what makes you so sad? Your good mother, the best woman in the United States? Eh, speak!”

"You always interrupt me," said the young man, quietly. "No! my mother is living, but greatly bowed down.'

Jack Williams's eyes darted nearly out of their sockets, and he trembled violently.

"Ralph!" he exclaimed, sorrowfully, "what do you say? Is it Tom Redstone, your good father, the best hunter in the backwoods?" "Yes," said the youth, softly. "I closed his eyes, and dug his grave under the maple tree in our garden, and he is buried there."

Jack's arms sank powerless to his side; he staggered to his seat, and, resting his elbows on his knees, covered his face with his hands. His breast heaved violently; it was not breathing, but groaning, that caused it slowly to rise and fall. Ralph sat down opposite to him, and ped his own tears away, and Jack Williams,

the man who was as hard as the bark of an oak, wept for the first time in his life.

They sat there a long time. The noise of the people round about, who were not in the least disturbed by the trouble of the two men, did not arouse him from his grief over the loss of his best friend, whom he had loved as his own soul, and had been with constantly in toil and danger for forty years.

He rose at last. His countenance was sad. His face reflected what his soul suffered.

"The Sioux would say," said he, "that the Great Spirit has taken the brave chief and hunter to the happy hunting-grounds of paradise. Ralph, my son, there is something in these words that is a comfort to the savages."

"The Christian has got a better hope," said the young man, quietly.

"I know, I know," said Williams: "without that, one's heart would break. Ralph! your father was a true friend, as sure as I live. There are very few more so in this world."

"That he was!" said the son.

"Let me say that, my boy; for I know it," he continued, with broken accents.

The

"How often has he exposed himself to danger for me! Once, in the Rocky mountains, a grizzly bear attacked me; you know what a frightful animal that is. I had shot at it once -the worst shot I ever fired at a bear. beast rushed at me, growling horribly, with glaring eyes, and mouth wide open, and struck me on the left shoulder with one of its paws, knocking me down, and breaking my collar