I was just meditating upon my first declaration of love, when our old servant arrived with four Indian guides.

He had left the settlement seven days, and had come almost all the way by water.

He had been despatched by my father to bring me home, if I had not yet left Monterey.

His intelligence was disastrous; the Prince had been murdered by the Crows; the Shoshones had gone on a war expedition to revenge the death of the Prince; and my father himself, who had been daily declining, expected in a short time to rejoin his friend in a better world.

Poor Isabella! I would have added, poor me! but the fatal news brought had so excited me, that I had but few thoughts to give to pleasure and to love.