At this time an old female negro entered, now for the first time alarmed by the outcry, who assisted in removing such traces of the fire as still remained about the room.

She seemed to occupy a neighboring outhouse; to which, having done what seemed absolutely necessary, she immediately retired.
Colleton, with a sentiment of the deepest commiseration, proceeded to reinstate things as they might have been before the conflagration, and having done so, and having soothed, as far as he well might, the excited apprehensions of the young girl, who made her acknowledgments in a not unbecoming style, he ventured to ask a few questions as to the condition of the old lady and of herself; but, finding from the answers that the subject was not an agreeable one, and having no pretence for further delay, he prepared to depart.

He inquired, however, his proper route to the Chestatee river, and thus obtained a solution of the difficulty which beset him in the choice of roads at the fork.
While thus employed, however, and just at the conclusion of his labors, there came another personage upon the scene, to whom it is necessary that we should direct our attention.
It will be remembered that Rivers and Munro, after the murder of Forrester, had separated--the latter on his return to the village--the other in a direction which seemed to occasion some little dissatisfaction in the mind of his companion.

After thus separating, Rivers, to whom the whole country was familiar, taking a shorter route across the forest, by which the sinuosities of the main road were generally avoided, entered, after the progress of a few miles, into the very path pursued by Colleton, and which, had it been chosen by his pursuers in the first instance, might have entirely changed the result of the pursuit.

In taking this course it was not the thought of the outlaw to overtake the individual whose blood he so much desired; but, with an object which will have its development as we continue, he came to the cottage at the very time when, having succeeded in overcoming the flames, Ralph was employed in a task almost as difficult--that of reassuring the affrighted inmates, and soothing them against the apprehension of farther danger.
With a caution which old custom had made almost natural in such cases, Rivers, as he approached the cross-roads, concealed his horse in the cover of the woods, advanced noiselessly, and with not a little surprise, to the cottage, whose externals had undergone no little alteration from the loss of the shutter, the blackened marks, visible enough in the moonlight, around the window-frame, and the general look of confusion which hung about it.