After one or two ineffectual attempts, Claud, with a last desperate effort, fortunately succeeded in securing his grasp on the hunter's boat, without losing his hold on the other; when, with one mighty effort of the latter, they were all drawn out of the vortex together, and soon brought safely to shore. "Fluella, my fair young friend," said the hunter, taking a long breath, and respectfully turning to the rescued girl, as the party stepped on to the dry beach, "I have not often--no, never--felt more rejoiced than now, in seeing you stand here in safety." "I know the danger I have been in," responded the maiden, feelingly. "O yes, know to remember, and know to remember, also, those who made my escape. Mr. Phillips, I am grateful much." "Don't thank _me_," promptly replied the hunter. "I am ashamed not to have been the first in the rescue, when the chief's daughter was in danger." "But, Mr. Phillips," rejoined the other, with an expressive smile, "you have not told me who this stranger is, who seemed to measure the value of his own life by such a worthless thing as mine." "True, no," returned the hunter; "but this gentleman, Fluella, is young Mr. Claud Elwood, who, with his father and mother, has recently moved into the settlement; and they are now my nearest neighbors, at the foot of the lower lake. And to you, Claud, I have to say, that this young lady is the daughter of Wenongonet, the red chief, the original lord of these lakes, and still living on the one next above." Both the maiden and her gallant young preserver seemed equally surprised, at the announcement of each others' name and character: the former, because it suggested questions in the solution of which she felt an interest, but which, with the characteristic prudence of her race, she forbore to ask; and the latter, because he found it hard to realize that the fair-complexioned and every way beautiful girl, who stood before him, readily speaking his own language, and neatly and even richly arrayed in the usual female habiliments of the day, with the single exception of the gay, beaded moccasins, that enveloped her small feet and ankles,--found it extremely difficult to realize that one of such an exterior, and of so much evident culture, could possibly have descended from the tawny and uncultivated sons of the forest. "You two should hereafter be friends, should you not?" observed the hunter, perceiving their mutual restraint, of which he wished to relieve them. Rousing himself, with a prompt affirmative reply to the question, Claud gallantly advanced, and extended his hand to his fair companion, who, with evident emotion, and a slight suffusion of the cheek, gave him her own in return, as she said: "O yes. Mr. Phillips' friend is my friend, and, I--I--why, I can't thank him _now_; the words don't come; the thanks remain unshaped in my heart."