The spring of a famished tiger on a heifer is not more fiercely impetuous than was the bound with which Reginald Brandon rushed from the adjacent thicket upon Mahéga,—reckless of his opponent’s huge bulk and strength, forgetful that he was himself unarmed. The cry of Prairie–bird had strung with tenfold power every sinew in his athletic frame: seizing with both hands the throat of Mahéga, he grasped it with such deadly force that the Indian was compelled to release his hold of the maiden,—but he still retained her knife, and in the struggle plunged it into the arm and shoulder of Reginald, who relaxed not, however, his iron grasp, but still bore his opponent backwards, until the foot of the latter tripped over a projecting root, and he fell with tremendous force upon his head, the blood gushing in torrents from his nose and mouth. Reginald, who had been dragged down in his fall, seized the dagger, and, as he raised it above his head, felt a light touch upon his arm, and turning round saw Prairie–bird kneeling at his side, her face pale as monumental marble, and the sacred volume still clasped in her hand. “Kill him not, Reginald,” she said, in a low impressive voice; “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!’” Breathless, and flushed with the late severe struggle, the young man replied: “I will spare the villain, dear Prairie–bird, at your bidding: he is stunned and senseless now, but he will soon recover, and his fury and thirst for revenge will know no bounds; he shall know, however, that I _have_ spared him.” So saying, he cut off the dyed and ornamented scalp–lock from the top of Mahéga’s head, and, laying it beside the prostrate chieftain, arose, and retired with Prairie–bird from the spot. They walked together some distance in silence, for her heart was overcharged with contending emotions; and as they went she unconsciously clung to his arm for support: at length she stopped, and looking up in his face, her eyes glistening with tears, she said, “How am I ever to thank you?—my first debt of gratitude is due to Heaven; but you have been its brave, its blessed instrument of my deliverance from worse than death!” and a shudder passed over her frame as the rude grasp of Mahéga recurred to her remembrance. “Dear Prairie–bird,” he replied; “as a man I would have done as much for the poorest and most indifferent of your sex—how then am I repaid a thousand, thousand fold by having been allowed to serve a being so precious!” The deep mellow tone in which he spoke these words, and the look by which they were accompanied, brought the truant colour again to the cheek of his companion, and as she cast her full dark eyes downwards, they rested on the arm that supported her, and she saw that his sleeve was stained and dropping with blood! “Oh! you are wounded, badly hurt, I fear. Tell me, tell me, Reginald,” she continued, with an intensity of anxiety that her expressive countenance betrayed, “are you badly hurt?”