Thus amusing themselves, they continued their journey, to perform which, we must leave them, while we bring forward other parts of our story. CHAPTER IX. “But winter has yet brighter scenes, he boasts Splendours beyond what gorgeous summer knows, Or autumn, with his many fruits, and woods All flushed with many hues. Come, when the rains Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours Into the bowers a flood of light.” BRYANT. Netnokwa, whom we left journeying to the lands of the Wabash, visited the friends whom she was seeking, remained there sometime, and then with her daughter and captive proceeded up far into the regions of the North-west. Several months had elapsed, and the maiden, of whom no tidings had been heard since her capture, might be seen standing in the door of a bark hut, situated on the borders of Rainy Lake, and gazing anxiously out as if expecting the arrival of some one. She was closely muffled up in firs, and with increasing anxiety in her countenance, would ever and anon step forth, and search in every direction the dreary waste. Yet she remained out but a moment, for the snow was falling fast, the earth was already covered to some depth, and the winds as they hurried eddying past, drifted it up in heaps. Forced in by the pitiless storm, she again resumed her situation at the door. A few months, what changes they sometimes produce! Yes, only a few months had passed, and how changed in appearance was the captive! The joyous expression of countenance which marked her happier days had fled; gone was the beauty which mantled her cheeks, and in its stead, there was melancholy stamped in every feature of her pale and delicate face. Still she was beautiful, or perhaps I should say interesting rather than beautiful. The fire of her dark eyes was undimmed, and when in her anxiety, she moved them restlessly about, they served to light up her pale and settled features, as beautifully as the moon does a fleecy cloud when it passes over its face. Night was now fast setting in, and still the storm abated not, but rather appeared to drive on with more fury; dreary in the extreme, would have been the prospect even to an old hunter, then doubly so must it have been to our heroine; still she uttered no lament, ventured no accusation against the authors of her misfortune, but continued to search with the eyes of affection, the waste before her.