The pace of our traveller, we have said, was slow.  We may add that his mood was also inattentive.  He was not only unapprehensive of present danger, but his thoughts were naturally yielded to the condition of the two poor women, in that lonely abode of forest, whom he had just rescued, in all probability, from a fearful death.  Happy with the pleasant consciousness of a good action well performed, and with spirits naturally rising into animation, freed as they were from a late heavy sense of danger—­he was as completely at the mercy of the outlaw who awaited him, pistol in hand, as if he lay, as his poor friend, Forrester, so recently had done, directly beneath his knife.

And so thought Rivers, who heard the approaching footsteps, and now caught a glimpse of his approaching shadow.

The outlaw deliberately lifted his pistol.  It was already cocked.  His form was sheltered by a huge tree, and as man and horse gradually drew nigh, the breathing of the assassin seemed almost suspended in his ferocious anxiety for blood.

The dark shadow moved slowly along the path.  The head of the horse is beside the outlaw.  In a moment the rider will occupy the same spot—­and then!  The finger of the outlaw is upon the trigger—­the deadly aim is taken!—­what arrests the deed?  Ah! surely there is a Providence—­a special arm to save—­to interpose between the criminal and his victim—­to stay the wilful hands of the murderer, when the deed seems already done, as it has been already determined upon.

Even in that moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the unconscious traveller—­a sudden rush is heard above the robber.  Great wings sweep away, with sudden clatter, and the dismal hootings of an owl, scared from his perch on a low shrub-tree, startles the cold-blooded murderer from his propriety.  With the nervous excitement of his mind, and his whole nature keenly interested in the deed, to break suddenly the awful silence, the brooding hush of the forest, with unexpected sounds, and those so near, and so startling—­for once the outlaw ceased to be the master of his own powers!

The noise of the bird scared the steed.  He dashed headlong forward, and saved the life of his rider!

Yet Ralph Colleton never dreamed of his danger—­never once conjectured how special was his obligations to the interposing hand of Providence!  And so, daily, with the best of us—­and the least fortunate.  How few of us ever dream of the narrow escapes we make, at moments when a breath might kill us, when the pressure of a “bare bodkin” is all that is necessary to send us to sudden judgment!

And the outlaw was again defeated.  He had not, perhaps, been scared.  He had only been surprised—­been confounded.  In the first cry of the bird, the first rush of his wings, flapping through the trees, it seemed as if they had swept across his eyes.  He lowered the pistol involuntarily—­he forgot to pull the trigger, and when he recovered himself, steed and rider had gone beyond his reach.