We burned down the wigwam, and made on as if the gal was burned in it; and then I stumped off to the Injun border, among them that didn't know me, and according to Dick's advice, helped myself to another name, and jist passed off the gal for my own daughter." "Your own daughter!" cried Roland, starting half up, but being unable to rise on account of his bonds: "the story then is true! and Telie Doe is my uncle's child, the lost heiress ?" "Well, supposing she is ?" said Atkinson, "I reckon you'd not be exactly the man to help her to her rights ?" "Ay, by Heaven, but I would though!" said Roland, "if rights they be.

If my uncle, upon knowledge that she was still alive, thought fit to alter his intentions with regard to Edith and myself, he would have found none more ready to acknowledge the poor girl's claims than ourselves, none more ready to befriend and assist her." "Well! there's all the difference between being an honest feller and a rascal!" muttered Atkinson, casting his eyes upon the fire, which he fell to studying for a moment with great earnestness.

Then starting up hastily, and turning to the prisoner he exclaimed-- "There's not a better gal in the etarnal world! You don't know it, captain; but that Telie, that poor critter that's afeard of her own shadow, did run all risks, and play all manner of fool's tricks, to save you from this identical same captivation; and the night you was sleeping at Bruce's fort, and we waiting for you at the ford, she cried, and begged, and prayed that I would do you no more mischief; and, cuss her, she threatened to tell you and Bruce, there, the whole affair of the ambush; till I scared her with my tomahawk, like a d----d rascal as I am (but there's nothing will fetch her round but fear of murdering); and so swore her to keep silence.

And then, captain, her running away after you in the woods,--why, it was jist to circumvent us,--to lead you to the t'other old road, and so save you; it was, captain, and she owned it: and if you'd a' taken to her leading, as she axed you, she'd 'a' got you out of the snarl altogether.

Howsomever, captain," he continued, after making those admissions, which solved all the enigmas of Telie's conduct, "I won't lie in this matter no-how.