might succeed me when I retire, which must be sooner or later; but on reflection, Pathfinder, I think you are scarcely fitted for the office.  Still, if not a soldier in all the meanings of the word, you are a soldier in its best meaning, and I know that you have the good-will of every officer in the corps.  As long as I live, Mabel can dwell with me, and you will always have a home when you return from your scoutings and marches.”

“This is very pleasant to think of, Sergeant, if the girl can only come into our wishes with good-will.  But, ah’s me!  It does not seem that one like myself can ever be agreeable in her handsome eyes.  If I were younger, and more comely, now, as Jasper Western is, for instance, there might be a chance —­ yes, then, indeed, there might be some chance.”

“That for Jasper Eau-douce, and every younker of them in or about the fort!” returned the Sergeant, snapping his fingers.  “If not actually a younger, you are a younger-looking, ay, and a better-looking man than the Scud’s master — "

“Anan?” said Pathfinder, looking up at his companion with an expression of doubt, as if he did not understand his meaning.

“I say if not actually younger in days and years, you look more hardy and like whipcord than Jasper, or any of them; and there will be more of you, thirty years hence, than of all of them put together.  A good conscience will keep one like you a mere boy all his life.”

“Jasper has as clear a conscience as any youth I know, Sergeant, and is as likely to wear on that account as any in the colony.”

“Then you are my friend,” squeezing the other’s hand, “my tried, sworn, and constant friend.”

“Yes, we have been friends, Sergeant, near twenty years before Mabel was born.”

“True enough; before Mabel was born, we were well-tried friends; and the hussy would never dream of refusing to marry a man who was her father’s friend before she was born.”

“We don’t know, Sergeant, we don’t know.  Like loves like.  The young prefer the young for companions, and the old the old.”

“Not for wives, Pathfinder; I never knew an old man, now, who had an objection to a young wife.  Then you are respected and esteemed by every officer in the fort, as I have said already, and it will please her fancy to like a man that every one else likes.”

“I hope I have no enemies but the Mingos,” returned the guide, stroking down his hair meekly and speaking thoughtfully.  “I’ve tried to do right, and that ought to make friends, though it sometimes fails.”

“And you may be said to keep the best company; for even old Duncan of Lundie is glad to see you, and you pass hours in his society.  Of all the guides, he confides most in you.”

“Ay, even greater than he is have marched by my side for days, and have conversed with me as if I were their brother; but, Sergeant, I have never been puffed up by their company, for I know that the woods often bring men to a level who would not be so in the settlements.”