"Yes! yes! What happened then?" asked Jamie impatiently.
"Why, every man Jack of them seized their rifles and tomahawks, and bolted out of the camp to the help of the scout, leaving me alone, bound hand and foot to a tree."
"And how did you free yourself?"
"Why, the scamp who had been threatening to brand me, when he bolted with the rest, dropped the hot iron at my feet, so that it burnt this hole in my moccasin. See here. The opportunity was too good to be lost, so I wriggled and shuffled my feet till the iron came in contact with the lowest thong. It was burnt through in less than a minute, and in another five minutes I was free."
"That was worthy of a trapper and a frontiersman. The implement of torture was a blessing in disguise."
"I didn't remain long in the camp, I can tell you, for at any moment the redskins might have returned, and there is no doubt that they would have scalped me on the spot, in revenge for what the Young Eagle had done. I was unable to walk for a few minutes, so tightly had they bound me; but I rubbed and chafed my limbs till the circulation was restored, and then I seized my rifle and knife and walked off. At dawn I stumbled across you, and--here we are; a match for a dozen Indians yet, let them come when they will," and the trapper laughed silently.
"Paleface, I'm glad to have met you," said Jamie, rising from the ground and extending his hand to his new friend. "I have had so many unhappy experiences during the past twenty-four hours, that I had begun to doubt the Providence which has delivered me so often, but I shall never doubt again, for God has never failed me yet."
There was something very much like a tear that trickled down the rough face of the trapper as he grasped the extended hand and said, in quiet but earnest tones--
"He never will fail you--if you trust Him."
"If only my two comrades were alive I should be the happiest creature in all this wide forest."