looking, ay, and a better looking man than the Scud's "Anan!" said Pathfinder, looking up at his companion with an expression of doubt, as if he did not understand his meaning. "I say, if not actually younger in days and years, you look more hardy and like whip-cord, than Jasper, or any of them; and there will be more of you, thirty years hence, than of all of them put together. A good conscience will keep one like you a mere boy, all his life.” Jasper has as clear a conscience as any youth, I know, serjeant !—and is as likely to wear, on that account, as any young man in the colony." "Then you are my friend," squeezing the other's handmy tried, sworn and constant friend." "Yes, we have been friends, serjeant, near twenty years— before Mabel was born." "True enough—before Mabel was born, we were well-tried friends, and the hussy would never dream of refusing to marry a man who was her father's friend before she was born!" "We don't know, serjeant, we don't know. Like loves like. The young prefer the young for companions, and the old the old." "Not for wives, Pathfinder; I never knew an old man, now, who had an objection to a young wife. Then you are respected and esteemed by every officer in the fort, as I have said already, and it will please her fancy to like a man that every one else likes." "I hope I have no enemies but the Mingos," returned the guide, stroking down his hair meekly, and speaking thoughtfully. "I've tried to do right, and that ought to make friends, though it sometimes fails." "And you may be said to keep the best company, for even old Duncan of Lundie is glad to see you, and you pass hours in his society. Of all the guides, he confides most in you." "Ay, even greater than he is, have marched by my side for days, and have conversed with me as if I were their brother; but, serjeant, I have never been puffed up by their company, for I know that the woods often bring men to a level, who would not be so in the settlements.” “And you are known to be the greatest rifle-shot that ever pulled trigger in all this region.” “If Mabel could fancy a man for that, I might have no great reason to despair; and yet, serjeant, I sometimes think that it is all as much owing to Killdeer, as to any skill of my own. It is sartainly a wonderful piece, and might do as much in the hands of another !” "That is your own humble opinion of yourself, Pathfind er, but we have seen too many fail with the same weapon, and you succeed too often with the rifles of other men, to allow me to agree with you. We will get up a shooting match, in a day or two, when you can show your skill, and then Mabel will form some judgment concerning your true character.” “Will that be fair, serjeant? Everybody knows that Killdeer seldom misses, and ought we to make a trial of this sort, when we all know what must be the result?" “Tut—tut, man; I foresee I must do half this courting for you. For one who is always inside of the smoke, in a skirmish, you are the faintest-hearted suitor I ever met with. Remember Mabel comes of a bold stock; and the girl will be as likely to admire a man, as her mother was before her." Here the serjeant arose, and proceeded to attend to his never-ceasing duties, without apology; the terms on which the guide stood with all in the garrison, rendering this freedom quite a matter of course. The reader will have gathered from the conversation just related, one of the plans that Serjeant Dunham had in view, in causing his daughter to be brought to the frontier. Although, necessarily, much weaned from the caresses and blandishments that had rendered his child so dear to him, during the first year or two of his widowerhood, he had still a strong, but somewhat latent, love for her. tomed to command and to obey, without being questioned himself, or questioning others, concerning the reasonableness of the mandates, he was, perhaps, too much disposed to believe that his daughter would marry the man he might select, while he was far from being disposed to do violence to her wishes. The fact was, few knew the Pathfinder, intimately, Accus without secretly coming to believe him to be one of extraor dinary qualities. Ever the same, simple-minded, faithful, utterly without fear, and yet prudent, foremost in all warrantable enterprises, or what the opinion of the day considered as such, and never engaged in anything to call a blush to his cheek, or censure on his acts; it was not possible to live much with this being, who, in his peculiar way, was a sort of type of what Adam might have been supposed to be before the fall, though certainly not without sin, and not feel a respect and admiration for him, that had no reference to his position in life. It was remarked, that no officer passed him, without saluting him as if he had been his equal; no common man, without addressing him with the confidence and freedom of a comrade. The most surprising peculiarity about the man himself, was the entire indifference with which he regarded all distinctions that did not depend on personal merit. He was respectful to his superiors from habit, but had often been known to correct their mistakes, and to reprove their vices, with a fearlessness that proved how essentially he regarded the more material points, and with a natural discrimination, that appeared to set education at defiance. In short, a disbeliever in the ability of man to distinguish between good and evil, without the aid of instruction, would have been staggered by the character of this extraordinary inhabitant of the frontier. His feelings appeared to possess the freshness and nature of the forest in which he passed so much of his time; and no casuist could have made clearer decisions in matters relating to right and wrong; and, yet, he was not without his prejudices, which, though few, and coloured by the character and usages of the individual, were deep-rooted, and had almost got to form a part of his nature. But the most striking feature about the moral organization of Pathfinder, was his beautiful and unerring sense of justice. This noble trait, and without it no man can be truly great, with it, no man other than respectable, probably had its unseen influence on all who associated with him; for the common and unprincipled brawler of the camp had been known to return from an expedition made in his company, rebuked by his sentiments, softened by his language, and improved by his example. As might have been expected, with so elevated a quality, his fidelity was like the immove able rock. Treachery in him was classed among the things that are impossible, and as he seldom retired before his enemies, so was he never known, under any circumstances that admitted of an alternative, to abandon a friend. The affinities of such a character were, as a matter of course, those of like for like. His associates and intimates, though more or less determined by chance, were generally of the highest order, as to moral propensities, for he appeared to possess a species of instinctive discrimination, that led him, insensibly to himself, most probably, to cling closest to those whose characters would best reward his friendship. In short, it was said of the Pathfinder, by one accustomed to study his fellows, that he was a fair example of what a just-minded and pure man might be, while untempted by unruly or ambitious desires, and left to follow the bias of his feelings, amid the solitary grandeur and ennobling influences of a sublime nature; neither led aside by the inducements which influence all to do evil amid the incentives of civilization; nor forgetful of the Almighty Being, whose spirit pervades the wilderness as well as the towns. Such was the man whom Serjeant Dunham had selected as the husband of Mabel. In making this choice, he had not been as much governed by a clear and judicious view of the merits of the individual, perhaps, as by his own likings; still, no one knew the Pathfinder as intimately as himself, without always conceding to the honest guide a high place in his esteem, on account of these very virtues. That his daughter could find any serious objections to the match, the old soldier did not apprehend; while, on the other hand, he saw many advantages to himself, in dim perspective, that were connected with the decline of his days, and an evening of life passed among descendants who were equally dear to him through both parents. He had first made the proposition to his friend, who had listened to it kindly, but who, the serjeant was now pleased to find, already betrayed a willingness to come into his own views, that was proportioned to the doubts and misgivings proceeding from his humble distrust of himself. CHAPTER X. "Think not I love him, though I ask for him; A WEEK passed in the usual routine of a garrison. Mabel was becoming used to a situation that, at first, she had found not only novel, but a little irksome; and the officers and men, in their turn, gradually familiarized to the presence of a young and blooming girl, whose attire and carriage had that air of modest gentility about them, which she had obtained in the family of her patroness, annoyed her less by their ill-concealed admiration, while they gratified her by the respect which, she was fain to think, they paid her on account of her father; but which, in truth was more to be attributed to her own modest, but spirited deportment, than to any deference for the worthy serjeant. Acquaintances made in a forest, or in any circumstances of unusual excitement, soon attain their limits. Mabel found one week's residence at Oswego, sufficient to determine her, as to those with whom she might be intimate, and those whom she ought to avoid. The sort of neutral position occupied by her father, who was not an officer while he was so much more than a common soldier, by keeping her aloof from the two great classes of military life, lessened the number of those whom she was compelled to know, and made the duty of decision comparatively easy. Still she soon discovered that there were a few, even among those that could aspire to a seat at the commandant's table, who were disposed to overlook the halbert, for the novelty of a well-turned figure, and of a pretty, winning face; and by the end of the first two or three days, she had admirers even among the gentlemen. The quarter-master, in particular, a middleaged soldier, who had more than once tried the blessings of matrimony already, but was now a widower, was evidently disposed to increase his intimacy with the serjeant, though their |