against the borers, and more than one of the youths received greater or less injuries, while exposed to their annoyance. There were indeed a few minutes, during which it remained a question of grave interest how far the risk they ran was likely to be crowned with success. The excessive heat of so many fires, and the occasional contact with the flames, as they swept in eddies over the place, began to render it doubtful whether any human efforts could long arrest the evil. Even the massive and moistened logs of the body of the work began to smoke; and it was found, by experiment, that the hand could rest but a moment on their surface. During this interval of deep suspense, all the men posted at the loops were called to aid in extinguishing the fire. Resistance was forgotten in the discharge of a duty that had become still more pressing. Ruth herself was aroused by the nature of the alarm, and all hands and all minds were arduously occupied in a toil that diverted attention from incidents which had less interest, because they were teeming less with instant destruction. Danger is known to lose its terrors by familiarity. The young borderers became reckless of their persons in the ardor of exertion, and as success began to crown their efforts, something like the levity of happier moments got the better of their concern. Stolen and curious glances were thrown around a place that had so long been kept sacred to the secret uses of the Puritan, when it was found that the flames were subdued, and that the present danger was averted. The light glared powerfully through several openings in the shingles, no less than through the windows; and every eye was enabled to scan the contents of an apartment which all had longed, though none had ever before presumed, to enter. "The Captain looketh well to the body," whispered Reuben Ring to one of his comrades, as he wiped the effects of the toil from a sun-burnt brow. "Thou seest, Hiram, that there is good store of cheer." "The buttery is not better stored!" returned the other, with the shrewdness and ready observation of a border-man. "It is known that he never toucheth that which the cow yields, except as it comes from the creature, and here we find of the best that the Madam's dairy can yield!" "Surely yon buff jerkin is like to those worn by the idle cavaliers at home! I think it be long since the Captain hath ridden forth in such a guise." "That may be matter of ancient usage, for thou seest he hath relics of the fashion of the English troopers in this bit of steel; it is like, he holdeth deep exercise over the vanities of his youth, while recalling the times in which they were worn."