"To my great grief! he is captive, and condemned to die at the rising of the sun."
Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons
THE MASQUERADER
The grim head fell on one side, and in its place appeared
the honest, sturdy countenance of the scout
"I had misgivings that such would be his fate," resumed the scout, in a less confident and joyous tone. But soon regaining his naturally firm voice, he continued: "His bad fortune is the true reason of my being here, for it would never do to abandon such a boy to the Hurons. A rare time the knaves would have of it, could they tie The Bounding Elk and The Long Carabine, as they call me, to the same stake! Though why they have given me such a name I never knew, there being as little likeness between the gifts of 'Killdeer,' and the performance of one of your real Canada carabynes, as there is between the natur' of a pipe-stone and a flint!"
"Keep to your tale," said the impatient Heyward; "we know not at what moment the Hurons may return."
"No fear of them. A conjurer must have his time, like a straggling priest in the settlements. We are as safe from interruption as a missionary would be at the beginning of a two hours' discourse. Well, Uncas and I fell in with a return party of the varlets; the lad was much too forward for a scout; nay, for that matter, being of hot blood, he was not so much to blame; and, after all, one of the Hurons proved a coward, and in fleeing led him into an ambushment."