he, alone as he was, had been taken captive. The horse had belonged to that celebrated major, his friend, until, on account of his sagacity, and capacity of endurance, Gladwin had presented the animal to him. Until now during the short peace with the English and the numerous tribes who owned Pontiac as their leader, the young man had travelled much through the interior of New York and the New England States, and had ever been treated with the greatest respect and kindness by the Indians. But the times were again becoming troublous. Several outrages, both on the part of the English and the Indians, had reached him, and rumours of war were afloat. Still had he continued to journey fearlessly on, with the hope of youth before him, with no particular object in view, save that of gratifying his thirst for the beautiful, in looking upon nature in this her new phase—her sublime old forest—her ocean lakes—her towering mountains and giant waterfalls.
He had now full leisure to contemplate the sublimity of an American forest, in all the grandeur of its antiquity; and as the shadows among those venerable old trees began to lengthen and deepen, and as night crept softly down through that heaven-high canopy of leaves, the heart of the young man beat thick within him, as much in awe of the solemn tale whispered to him by that dim old forest, as in fear of the fierce savages. As those shadows grew more and more black, the flickering fire-light grew brighter, and the strange-looking Indians, in their fantastic dress and unchristian paint, as they flitted back and forth between him and the gleaming tongues of forked light, began to assume shapes weird and mysterious. The Indian encampment became a magic dream. The Indians were demons and gnomes, practising their unlawful rites.
A light whisper in his ear awoke him to the consciousness that he had been sleeping. The silence of the grave had taken the place of the Indian’s rude mirth. The full moon overhead showed the time to be past midnight; its soft light revealed the lovely face of an Indian maiden bending low over him.
With his habitual instinct for the beautiful, Clarence had watched the lithe forms and free graceful motions of the young Indian
