Still, the eager and indefinable hope that was in her heart induced the girl to rise with the intention of descending the path, when she observed that the fallen man again moved. Rising on his hands and knees, he crept forward a few paces, and then stopped. Suddenly by a great effort, he raised himself to a kneeling position, clasped his hands, and looked up.

 

The act sufficed to decide the wavering girl. Leaping lightly over the breastwork, she ran swiftly down until she reached the man, who gazed at her in open-mouthed astonishment. He was a white man, and the ghastly pallor of his face, with a few spots of blood on it and on his hands, told that he had been severely wounded.

 

“Manitou seems to have sent an angel of light to me in my extremity,” he gasped in the Indian tongue.

 

“Come; me vill help you,” answered Softswan, in her broken English, as she stooped and assisted him to rise.

 

No other word was uttered, for even with the girl’s assistance it was with the utmost difficulty that the man reached the breastwork of the hut, and when he had succeeded in clambering over it, he lay down and fainted.

 

After Softswan had glanced anxiously in the direction of the forest, and placed one of the guns in a handy position, she proceeded to examine the wounded stranger. Being expert in such matters, she opened his vest, and quickly found a wound near the region of the heart. It was bleeding steadily though not profusely. To stanch this and bind it up was the work of a few minutes. Then she reclosed the vest. In doing so she found something hard in a pocket near the wound. It was a little book, which she gently removed as it might interfere with the bandage. In doing so she observed that the book had been struck by the bullet which it deflected, so as to cause a more deadly wound than might otherwise have been inflicted.

 

She was thus engaged when the patient recovered consciousness, and, seizing her wrist, exclaimed, “Take not the Word from me. It has been my joy and comfort in all my—”

 

He stopped on observing who it was that touched his treasure.

 

“Nay, then,” he continued, with a faint smile, as he released his hold; “it can come to no harm in thy keeping, child. For an instant I thought that rougher hands had seized it. But why remove it?”

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