Often in her dreams she again goes through those terrible experiences-- the perilous flight with the scout across the rugged ranges, momentarily expecting the volley of the lurking Sioux ambushed in the dense timber. Often in her dreams she is once more fleeing for dear life across those wild plains, the war-whoops of the painted fiends ringing in her ears, the thunder of their pursuing steeds shaking the ground. Often in her dreams she is again entering the frowning portals of that dread Thermopylae, where one man had unhesitatingly laid down his life in order that she might reach a place of safety. Often, too, she is once more amid her genial, kindly, travelling companions, only to wake up with a start and a shiver to the remembrance of their horrible fate. But never as long as she lives will she forget the moment when her brother, finding her out at Fort Vigilance, brought the news which had confirmed her fears to the uttermost. He who had offered his life for her was dead--dead amid the horrid torments of the Indian stake, as the savages themselves affirmed--and to her, thenceforward, life seemed a grey and valueless thing. There was nothing further to be gained by opposing her brother's wish that she should at once accompany him home to Lant-Hanger. Travelling through the British possessions safe beyond the reach of the hostile Sioux, who still carried terror and pillage over the plains of Dakota and Wyoming, they had set forth on their journey and had reached home in due course. Shocked out of even his philosophy by the change, nothing could exceed the affectionate consideration her father had show for her since her return. Even her mother forgot to grumble and scold in her relief at having the girl back again safe and sound, for George had judiciously put them up to the real state of affairs. It was not in the nature of things that her parents should be well pleased that she had buried her heart in the grave of an unknown adventurer, who had, moreover, met with a horrible death, but time, they hoped, would work a gradual cure, and she was young yet. Then, too, apart from this unfortunate affair, her experiences had been terrible for a refined and luxuriously-nurtured English girl. So no care or trouble was spared to induce her to forget them.