“Well, I’m glad I’m not that fourth person, in petto, or in anything else, as I should not like to be a scandal.”

“No fear of that, charming Mabel; for were you the fourth, all the others would be forgotten, and your wonderful beauty and merit would at once elevate you to be the first.  No fear of your being the fourth in any thing.”

“There is consolation in that assurance, Mr. Muir,” said Mabel, laughing, “whatever there may be in your other assurance; for I confess I should prefer being even a fourth-rate beauty to being a fourth wife.”

So saying she tripped away, leaving the Quartermaster to meditate on his success.  Mabel had been induced to use her female means of defence thus freely, partly because her suitor had of late been so pointed as to stand in need of a pretty strong repulse, and partly on account of his innuendoes against Jasper and the Pathfinder.  Though full of spirit and quick of intellect, she was not naturally pert; but on the present occasion she thought circumstances called for more than usual decision.  When she left her companion, therefore, she believed she was now finally released from attentions which she thought as ill-bestowed as they were certainly disagreeable.  Not so, however, with David Muir; accustomed to rebuffs, and familiar with the virtue of perseverance, he saw no reason to despair, though the half-menacing, half-self-satisfied manner in which he shook his head towards the retreating girl might have betrayed designs as sinister as they were determined.  While he was thus occupied, the Pathfinder approached, and got within a few feet of him unseen.

“’Twill never do, Quartermaster, ’twill never do,” commenced the latter, laughing in his noiseless way; “she is young and active, and none but a quick foot can overtake her.  They tell me you are her suitor, if you are not her follower.”

“And I hear the same of yourself, man, though the presumption would be so great that I scarcely can think it true.”

“I fear you’re right, I do; yes, I fear you’re right; —­when I consider myself, what I am, how little I know, and how rude my life has been, I altogether distrust my claim, even to think a moment of one so tutored, and gay, and light of heart, and delicate —­ "

“You forget handsome,” coarsely interrupted Muir.

“And handsome, too, I fear,” returned the meek and self-abased guide; “I might have said handsome at once, among her other qualities; for the young fa’n, just as it learns to bound, is not more pleasant to the eye of the hunter than Mabel is lovely in mine.  I do indeed fear that all the thoughts I have harbored about her are vain and presumptuous.”

“If you think this, my friend, of your own accord and natural modesty, as it might be, my duty to you as an old fellow-campaigner compels me to say —­ "

“Quartermaster,” interrupted the other, regarding his companion keenly, “you and I have lived together much behind the ramparts of forts, but very little in the open woods or in front of the enemy.”