The boy, proud of the trust committed to him, promised to obey his mother and be watchful, and from that time commenced a system of patient vigilance, of which a white child would scarcely be capable, but which seems to be a part of the nature of an Indian.  Whenever Ohquamehud left the cabin Quadaquina sought no more to avoid him, but accompanied him whenever invited, and if not, generally followed, so as not to lose him long out of sight.  There was something about the trust that agreed well with the cunning of the child.  It had for him a kind of fascination, like that which induces the hunter patiently, day after day, to pursue the track of the flying game, looking forward to the moment of success, when all his toil is to be repaid.

As for Esther, she lost no time in starting off to apprise Holden and Pownal of the danger she feared.  As the canoe glided along under the strokes of the paddle, which she knew how to use as well as any man, she reflected upon the proper manner of communicating her apprehensions; but the more she thought on the subject, the more difficult it appeared.  She could not mention the name of her kinsman as the person whom she suspected of an evil design.  That seemed to her a sort of treason, a violation of the rights of relationship and of hospitality.  He might be innocent.  She herself might be to blame for cherishing such suspicions.  She knew not what evils the disclosure of Ohquamehud’s name connected with the charge might occasion.  He might be arrested and put in prison, perhaps, executed.  The white people, in the opinion of the Indians, had never exercised much forbearance towards them, and regarded them as an inferior race.  The liberty or life of an Indian was, probably, with them, but of little consequence.  Besides, might she not be running some risk herself?  But this reflection weighed but little with the affectionate creature.  While such considerations occurred to the ignorant and timid woman, she was half tempted to turn back, and trust to the Manito or protecting genius, who had thus far borne the Solitary triumphantly through all perils, but her fears at last prevailed over these scruples, and she resolved to give the warning without making allusion to any person.

But Holden, a man naturally of great courage, and familiarized from his earliest years with danger, and the means of avoiding it, paid but little attention to the obscure hints of Esther.  He did not even take the trouble to inquire to what direction her allusions pointed.  From whom, from what, had he to apprehend danger to his life?  He had voluntarily embraced poverty; there was nothing about him to tempt cupidity; he loved all the world, and would hardly, indeed, hesitate to sacrifice, if need were, his life for that of an another.  What motive could there be to injure him?  He was not in the boundless forest of the West, roamed by predatory savages, but in a land of law, and order, and religion.  Were he, indeed, in those regions which had witnessed the