The crime with which the young man is charged, is the murder of Henry Falconer, who fell by a pistol shot in an affray during the pursuit. The criminal is lodged in jail at Hillborough--is tried--and, chiefly through the instrumentality of Col. Falconer, is in danger of being found guilty. But Elsie Bell now makes her appearance, and matters assume a new aspect. She reveals to Col. Falconer the exchange of the two infants--a fact with which he had been hitherto unacquainted--and consequently astounds him with the information that he is seeking the death of his own son. A new turn is also given to the evidence in the case of the murder by the death-bed confession of Sterling, who owns that he himself shot the deceased Henry Falconer, and also attempted the assassination of the Colonel. The prisoner is acquitted by acclamation. Col. Falconer, is shot by mistake while visiting his son in prison. Harriet dies of grief at the exposure of her father's villainy, and of her own consequent illegitimacy. Hyland Gilbert and Catherine are united. Oran, the refugee, who fired the shot by which Col. Falconer was accidentally killed, being hotly pursued, and dangerously wounded, escapes, finally, to his fastnesses in the mountains, where, after a lapse of many years, his bones and his rifle are identified. Thus ends the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow. We have already spoken of the character of Elsie Bell. That of Harriet Falconer, is forced, unnatural, and overstrained. Catherine Loring, however, is one of the sweetest creations ever emanating from the fancy of poet, or of painter. Truly feminine in thought, in manner, and in action, she is altogether a conception of which Dr. Bird has great reason to be proud. Phoebe, the waiting maid, (we have not thought it worth while to mention her in our outline,) is a mere excrescence, and, like some other personages in the tale, introduced for no imaginable purpose. Of the male _dramatis personæ_ some are good--some admirable--some execrable. Among the good, we may mention Captain Caliver of the Dragoons. Captain Loring is a _chéf d'oeuvre_. His oddities, his infirmities, his enthusiasm, his petulancy, his warm-heartedness, and his mutability of disposition, altogether make up a character which we may be permitted to consider original, inasmuch as we have never seen its prototype either in print, or in actual existence. It is however true to itself, and to propriety, and although at times verging upon the _outré_, is highly creditable to the genius of its author. Oran, the refugee, is well--but not excellently drawn. The hero Hyland, with whom we were much interested in the beginning of the book, proves inconsistent with himself in the end; and although to be inconsistent with one's self, is not always to be false to Nature--still, in the present instance, Hyland Gilbert in prison, and in difficulty, and Herman Hunter, in the opening of the