CHAPTER VII

CATHARINE MONTOUR


The five lay deep in the swamp, reunited once more, and full of
content. The great storm in which Long Jim, with the aid of his
comrades, had disappeared, was whirling off to the eastward. The
lightning was flaring its last on the distant horizon, but the
rain still pattered in the great woods.

It was a small hut, but the five could squeeze in it. They were
dry, warm, and well armed, and they had no fear of the storm and
the wilderness. The four after their imprisonment and privations
were recovering their weight and color. Paul, who had suffered
the most, had, on the other hand, made the quickest recovery, and
their present situation, so fortunate in contrast with their
threatened fate a few days before, made a great appeal to his
imagination. The door was allowed to stand open six inches , and
through the crevice he watched the rain pattering on the dark
earth. He felt an immense sense of security and comfort. Paul
was hopeful by nature and full of courage, but when he lay bound
and alone in a hut in the Iroquois camp it seemed to him that no
chance was left. The comrades had been kept separate, and he had
supposed the others to be dead. But here he was snatched from
the very pit of death, and all the others had been saved from a
like fate.