of fortune, she prepared to do without other assistance, and to forego the sentiment of dependence, which is perhaps one of the most marked characteristics of her sex. Calmly looking round upon the sleeping and defenseless crowd about her, she resumed her seat upon a low bench in a corner of the apartment, from which she had risen to secure the hatchet, and, extinguishing the only light in the room, fixed her eye upon the accessible window, while every thought of her mind prepared her for the danger which was at hand. She had not long been seated when she fancied that she heard a slight rustling of the branches of the fallen tree just beneath the window. She could not doubt her senses, and her heart swelled and throbbed with the consciousness of approaching danger. But still she was firm—her spirit grew more confirmed with the coming trial; and, coolly throwing the slippers from her feet, grasping firmly her hatchet at the same time, she softly arose, and keeping close in the shadow of the wall, she made her way to a recess, a foot or so from the entrance, to which it was evident someone was cautiously approaching along the attenuated body of the yielding pine. In a few moments a shadow darkened the opening. She edged more closely to the point and prepared for the intruder. She now beheld the head of the enemy—a fierce and foully painted savage—the war tuft rising up into a ridge, something like a comb, and his face smeared with colors in a style most ferociously grotesque. Still she could not strike, for, as he had not penetrated the window, and as its entrance was quite too small to enable her to strike with any hope of success at any distance through it, she felt that the effort would be wholly without certainty, and failure might be of the worst consequence. Though greatly excited, and struggling between doubt and determination, she readily saw what would be the error of any precipitation. But even as she mused thus apprehensively, the cunning savage laid his hand upon the
