“You are quite right, sir; Pathfinder is well advanced towards forty, and Mabel has every prospect of happiness that a young woman can derive from the certainty of possessing an experienced husband.  I was quite forty myself, your honor, when I married her mother.”

“But will your daughter be as likely to admire a green hunting-shirt, such as that our worthy guide wears, with a fox-skin cap, as the smart uniform of the 55th?”

“Perhaps not, sir; and therefore she will have the merit of self-denial, which always makes a young woman wiser and better.”

“And are you not afraid that she may be left a widow while still a young woman? what between wild beasts, and wilder savages, Pathfinder may be said to carry his life in his hand.”

“‘Every bullet has its billet,’ Lundie,” for so the Major was fond of being called in his moments of condescension, and when not engaged in military affairs; “and no man in the 55th can call himself beyond or above the chances of sudden death.  In that particular, Mabel would gain nothing by a change.  Besides, sir, if I may speak freely on such a subject, I much doubt if ever Pathfinder dies in battle, or by any of the sudden chances of the wilderness.”

“And why so, Sergeant?” asked the Major.  “He is a soldier, so far as danger is concerned, and one that is much more than usually exposed; and, being free of his person, why should he expect to escape when others do not?”

“I do not believe, your honor, that the Pathfinder considers his own chances better than any one’s else, but the man will never die by a bullet.  I have seen him so often handling his rifle with as much composure as if it were a shepherd’s crook, in the midst of the heaviest showers of bullets, and under so many extraordinary circumstances, that I do not think Providence means he should ever fall in that manner.  And yet, if there be a man in his Majesty’s dominions who really deserves such a death, it is Pathfinder.”

“We never know, Sergeant,” returned Lundie, with a countenance grave with thought; “and the less we say about it, perhaps, the better.  But will your daughter —­Mabel, I think, you call her —­ will Mabel be as willing to accept one who, after all, is a mere hanger-on of the army, as to take one from the service itself?  There is no hope of promotion for the guide, Sergeant.”

“He is at the head of his corps already, your honor.  In short, Mabel has made up her mind on this subject; and, as your honor has had the condescension to speak to me about Mr. Muir, I trust you will be kind enough to say that the girl is as good as billeted for life.”

“Well, well, this is your own matter, and, now —­ Sergeant Dunham!”

“Your honor,” said the other, rising, and giving the customary salute.

“You have been told it is my intention to send you down among the Thousand Islands for the next month.  All the old subalterns have had their tours of duty in that quarter —­ all that I like to trust at least; and it has at length come to your turn.  Lieutenant Muir, it is true, claims his right; but, being quartermaster, I do not like to break up well-established arrangements.  Are the men drafted?”