"Up the Miami, I suppose. At any rate, that's where I left them."
"Well, I'm afraid we're getting into hot water here, Lew, to tell the truth, and there's no one whose face would be more welcome just now than yours. I see they are beginning to wake up and show themselves. Gavoon has started the fire, so s'pose we go in and you make yourself known."
The hunter followed young Smith to the camp, where, in a short time, he met and shook hands with most of the settlers, who were indeed glad enough to see him; and this gladness was increased to delight when he expressed his willingness to accompany them across the dreaded creek. In the course of a half-hour the females began to make their appearance. Near by was a small stream where they performed their ablutions, which finished, they gathered around the camp-fire, and busied themselves with preparing the breakfast of the party.
Dernor, the Rifleman, was conversing with one of the settlers, when some one touched him on the shoulder. Looking around, he encountered his friend, Jim Smith.
"Here's a person I s'pose you've no objection to see," said he, with a light laugh.
The bronzed face of the hunter deepened its hue as he saw Edith Sudbury approaching, and although gifted with a natural grace of manner, he displayed some embarrassment as he advanced to greet her. Her conduct, too, was not without its suspicious air. Rosy and fresh as the flowers of the green woods around, perhaps the carnation of her cheeks was caused only by the morning exercise. Jim noticed these manifestations, and quietly smiled, but said nothing.
In regard to the Rifleman, at least, he was right. As that brave and gallant-hearted ranger wandered through the grand old forests of Ohio, and the cane-brakes of the "Dark and Bloody Ground," a fair face had haunted his waking and dreaming hours. As he knelt beside the sparkling brook to slake his thirst, he beheld the same features reflected beside his own in its mirror-like surface. As alone he threaded his way through the labyrinths of those dim solitudes, he had a fairy companion as faithful to him as his own shadow. And when with his tried and faithful followers, it was the same. Only in the excitement of the fight, or the moments when his strategic skill was in rivalry with that of his dusky enemies, did this shadowy being cease to haunt him. Night and day, it was the same—and now he had met the reality, and was conversing with her.
The conversation lasted but a few minutes. The services of Edith were needed, and she tripped away to assist the others at their duties. As she disappeared, Jim came up and laughingly remarked to the Rifleman:
"A fine girl that, Lewis."
"Indeed she is. I never have heard her name—that is, nothing more than Edith. What is the rest?"