"Yon Indian is a 'runner' of the army; and, after the fashion of his
people, he may be accounted a hero," returned the officer. "He has
volunteered to guide us to the lake, by a path but little known,
sooner than if we followed the tardy movements of the column; and, by
consequence, more agreeably."

"I like him not," said the lady, shuddering, partly in assumed, yet more
in real terror. "You know him, Duncan, or you would not trust yourself
so freely to his keeping?"

"Say, rather, Alice, that I would not trust you. I do know him, or he
would not have my confidence, and least of all at this moment. He
is said to be a Canadian too; and yet he served with our friends the
Mohawks, who, as you know, are one of the six allied nations. He was
brought among us, as I have heard, by some strange accident in which
your father was interested, and in which the savage was rigidly dealt
by; but I forget the idle tale, it is enough, that he is now our
friend."

"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the
now really anxious girl. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that
I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me
avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"

"It would be in vain; and answered, most probably, by an ejaculation.
Though he may understand it, he affects, like most of his people, to be
ignorant of the English; and least of all will he condescend to speak
it, now that the war demands the utmost exercise of his dignity. But
he stops; the private path by which we are to journey is, doubtless, at