The news was joyful to the maiden. She could scarcely refrain from clapping her hands and shouting with joy and thanks. By this time it was nearly sunset, and ere the renegade and maiden had taken their departure from the village, the shadows of evening had begun to gather over the woodland, and lurk assassin-like in the valleys. They set off on foot, following a plain-beaten path through the forest, southward. The journey before her was a long one, but Clara was so overpowered with joy, that she had never taken one thought of her inability to ever reach the post on foot. The two moved on in silence for about a mile or more, when Sherwood spoke. “Clara,” he said, “have you any recollections of your early childhood?--that is, do you recollect any thing of your early home in Ohio?” The maiden was not a little surprised by this strange question, and it was quite a while before she could gain composure to reply: “Why should I not, when it has been but a few years since I left there?” “Then you know that you are not the child of Geoffry Bryant,” the renegade said. Clara started at the question. Never had it been breathed to her before that she was _not_ the child of those whom she had loved as father and mother since her childhood recollections. And why should the renegade know more of her than she did herself? “I know no such a thing,” she replied, a little indignantly. “Well, I know that you are _not_ the child of Geoffry Bryant,” Sherwood replied. “_How_ do you know it?” she asked. The villain made no reply, for at this juncture they emerged into a small opening at the edge of a little lake, where the renegade stopped. “Why do you stop here?” Clara asked. Still the villain made no reply, but, turning, he seized the maiden, dragged her to the edge of the opening, and hurled her over the cliff into the lake below. What followed this murderous deed the reader already knows. CHAPTER XV. A STARTLING DISCOVERY. “What in the name of the holy tortures does this all mean?” yelled Old Tumult, as he knelt by the prostrate form of the man, while Town. Farnesworth knelt by the woman. The scout bent low and gazed into the face of the man. A shout, that rolled through the forest aisles like a peal of thunder, burst from his lips. He recognized the face of the man. It was that of Dick Sherwood! The old scout communicated his discovery to Town., and then asked: “Who’ve you got thar, Town.?” A groan burst from the young man’s lips and he started up. “What’s up, what’s up?” questioned the scout. “Oh, God! my eyes deceive me, Tumult!” he cried, “or else that is the face of Madge Taft.” “Holy smoke o’ torture!” burst from Tumult’s lips, as he knelt by the motionless form of the woman, and gazed into her face. “Yes, yes; it is the trader’s gal, but she is not dead.” A moan of pain from the woman’s lips verified his assertion.