letter by the flickering light of a smoking kerosene lamp. Siwash lay on a buffalo robe in a corner, reading; and near him sat Le-Le, making a cunningly wrought moccasin.
The wind outside was rising. The ice-laden chains and pulleys of the idle ferry-boat resounded to its attack like a thousand-stringed ^olian harp. Suddenly, under a louder and more furious blast than any that had preceded it, the ice-incrusted cables snapped asunder, and the frozen boat crashed through the ice blockade, her timbers breaking as if made of withes.
Ashleigh opened the door and peered out into the moonlight. White clouds rolled over and over one another, and the stark white landscape seemed alive with flurrying snow.
"Good-bye, Green River Ferry," he said. "This is a fitting finale to my cherished hopes. Oh, Jean! my bonnie Jean! To think that the end should be like this!"
"The ferry-boat is gone, Le-Le,'* he said the next morning. "Your, ransom price has been paid, and you are, as you know, a slave no longer. I am going away. Take good care of Le-Le, Siwash, my boy; and take good care of yourself also.^ The girl's English vocabulary was too meagre to admit of much expostulation in speech, but her wailing was blood-curdling as she knelt at his feet, alternately embracing his knees and tearing her hair.
"I have made a terrible mistake, poor girl," he cried, tearing himself away, "but I meant only to be kind. It was my dream to set you free and take you with me to — to—her. But now I see that it will be impossible!"
Le-Le, still wailing, prepared his breakfast. Siwash brought his mules to the door, in stolid obedience to orders, his face as expressionless as flint.
"The white man's heart is hard, like the hoof of the
