They proffered him the use of their canoes to enable him to ascend the streams, and to furnish guides, and an escort to protect him while traveling through the country. This offer, so much better than he had any reason to expect, was gladly accepted by Billings, and with two friends who had volunteered to accompany him, he once more started up the river, under the protection of his new friends. War had broken out among the various tribes on the route which he must travel, making it unsafe for him and his two companions, even under such a guide and escort as his Indian friends could furnish them. Thus he with his two associates were detained so long in the Indian country, that by their friends at home they were given up as lost. At last peace was restored, and they set out on their return. The journey home was a long and tedious one, but nothing occurred worth narrating. Upon reaching the Hudson, they employed an Indian to take them the remainder of the way in a canoe. Upon reaching Manhattan Island, the first place they stopped at was the residence of Carl Rosenthrall, Billings intending that the father of Hellena should be the first to hear the sad story of his failure and disappointment. It was evening when he arrived at the house and the lamps were lighted in the parlor. With heavy heart and trembling hands he rapped at the door. As the door opened he uttered a faint cry of surprise, which was answered by a similar one by the person who admitted him. It was Hellena herself! The scene that followed we shall not attempt to describe. CHAPTER XVIII. At about the same time that Henry Billings, under the protection of his Indian friends, set out on his last expedition up the river, a single canoe with four persons in it, put out from under the shadow of Old Crow Nest, on its way down the stream. The individual by whom the canoe was directed was an Indian, a man somewhat advanced in years. The others were a white girl, an Indian woman, and a negro boy. In short, the party consisted of Fire Cloud, Hellena Rosenthrall, Lightfoot, and Black Bill, on their way to the city. They had passed the fleet of canoes in which Billings had embarked, but not knowing whether it belonged to a party of friendly Indians or otherwise. Fire Cloud had avoided coming in contact with it for fear of being delayed, or of the party being made prisoners and carried back again. Could they have but met, what a world of trouble would it not have saved to all parties interested! As it was, Hellena arrived in safety, greatly to the delight of her father and friends, who had long mourned for her as for one they never expected to see again in this world. The sum of Hellena's happiness would now have been complete, had it not been for the dark shadow cast over it by the absence of her lover. And this shadow grew darker, and darker, as weeks, and months, rolled by without bringing any tidings of the missing one.