She was answered instantly by the Indian warwhoop close at hand, and half a dozen savages, armed with rifles and tomahawks, sprang out from the wood, not a hundred yards away. Wolf, having left his gun leaning up against a tree at some little distance, was unarmed except the hunting knife in his belt, and seeing himself about to be overpowered by numbers, fled with the utmost precipitation, plunging into the forest and instantly disappearing in its depths. Nell, not knowing whether to look upon the red men as friends or foes, felt her heart leap into her mouth, expecting to be tomahawked and scalped on the spot; but the next moment, recognizing in the foremost warrior her friend Wawillaway, she uttered a cry of joy. "Very bad white man," he said coming up to her, "want killee you." "No, I hope not," she said carefully steadying her voice, "but I am so glad, so glad you came and drove him away, Wawillaway. Oh, you have done me a greater service to-day than even the killing of the panther!" she added with an irrepressible shudder. It was long before Nell ventured again beyond the limits of the town without a protector; but fearing Wolf's vengeance upon her brother, should he bring the ruffian to punishment, as he undoubtedly would should he hear of this day's peril to her, she carefully concealed the occurrence, exacting a promise from her Indian friend to do the same. CHAPTER XIII. At about the same time that Nell Lamar met with her adventure with Wolf, important events were transpiring at Glen Forest. Mrs. Clendenin was summoned away to a distance from home by the serious illness of a sister of her late husband. Ignorant of the precise nature of the disease, she was unwilling to expose Marian to it, and though almost equally reluctant to leave her behind, decided upon that as the safer course. So with much tender, motherly counsel bestowed upon this child of her love, and many an injunction to Vashti to watch over her darling, she took her departure. The young girl felt inexpressibly lonely without the mother who had been to her friend, teacher and almost sole companion, everything in one, for they had led a very secluded life, paying and receiving few visits; indeed, seldom going anywhere but to church, except that Marian took many a ramble and many a ride on her pony through the adjacent woods and over the nearer hills, usually unaccompanied save by Caius, a huge mastiff who had hitherto proved a most efficient protector. Mrs. Clendenin had indeed never been neglectful of the Christian duty of ministering to the sick and suffering so far as lay in her power, and Marian was in this regard following in her mother's footsteps. A mile away over the eastern hills lived two elderly maiden ladies, Esther and Janet Burns, the one a paralytic, the other feeble and nearly blind from cataract. They had a farm, the rent of which yielded them a support, but their lives were lonely, and Marian's visits were a great boon.