“It is a long story, Mabel, and one your father, the Sergeant, can tell much better than I; for he was present, while I was off on a distant scouting.  Jasper is not good at a story, I will own that; I have heard him questioned about this affair, and he never made a good tale of it, although every body knows it was a good thing.  The Scud had near fallen into the hands of the French and the Mingos, when Jasper saved her, in a way which none but a quick-witted mind and a bold heart would have attempted.  The Sergeant will tell the tale better than I can, and I wish you to question him some day, when nothing better offers.”

Mabel determined to ask her father to repeat the incidents of the affair that very night; for it struck her young fancy that nothing better could well offer than to listen to the praises of one who was a bad historian of his own exploits.

“Will the Scud remain with us when we reach the island?” she asked, after a little hesitation about the propriety of the question; “or shall we be left to ourselves?”

“That’s as may be:  Jasper does not often keep the cutter idle when anything is to be done; and we may expect activity on his part.  My gifts, however, run so little towards the water and vessels generally, unless it be among rapids and falls and in canoes, that I pretend to know nothing about it.  We shall have all right under Jasper, I make no doubt, who can find a trail on Ontario as well as a Delaware can find one on the land.”

“And our own Delaware, Pathfinder —­ the Big Serpent —­why is he not with us to-night?”

“Your question would have been more natural had you said, Why are you here, Pathfinder?  The Sarpent is in his place, while I am not in mine.  He is out, with two or three more, scouting the lake shores, and will join us down among the islands, with the tidings he may gather.  The Sergeant is too good a soldier to forget his rear while he is facing the enemy in front.  It’s a thousand pities, Mabel, your father wasn’t born a general, as some of the English are who come among us; for I feel sartain he wouldn’t leave a Frencher in the Canadas a week, could he have his own way with them.”

“Shall we have enemies to face in front?” asked Mabel, smiling, and for the first time feeling a slight apprehension about the dangers of the expedition.  “Are we likely to have an engagement?”

“If we have, Mabel, there will be men enough ready and willing to stand between you and harm.  But you are a soldier’s daughter, and, we all know, have the spirit of one.  Don’t let the fear of a battle keep your pretty eyes from sleeping.”

“I do feel braver out here in the woods, Pathfinder, than I ever felt before amid the weaknesses of the towns, although I have always tried to remember what I owe to my dear father.”

“Ay, your mother was so before you.  ’You will find Mabel, like her mother, no screamer, or a faint-hearted girl, to trouble a man in his need; but one who would encourage her mate, and help to keep his heart up when sorest prest by danger,’ said the Sergeant to me, before I ever laid eyes on that sweet countenance of yours, —­ he did!”