"If a journey of a few hundred miles be all thou askest, girl, why speak in parables?" he good-naturedly replied. "The kind word was not wanting to put me on such a trial. We will be married on the Sabbath, and, please Heaven, the Wednesday, or the Saturday at most, shall see me on the path of the western trader." "No delay. Thou must depart with the sun. The more active thou provest on the journey the sooner wilt thou have the power to make me repent a foolish deed." But Faith had been persuaded to relax a little from this severity. They were married on the Sabbath, and the following day Content and Dudley left the valley, in quest of the distant tribe on which the scion of another stock was said to have been so violently engrafted. It is needless to dwell on the dangers and privations of such an expedition. The Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehannah, rivers that were then better known in tales than to the inhabitants of New-England, were all crossed; and after a painful and hazardous journey, the adventurers reached the first of that collection of small interior lakes, whose banks are now so beautifully decorated with villages and farms. Here, in the bosom of savage tribes, and exposed to every danger of field and flood, supported only by his hopes, and by the presence of a stout companion that hardships or danger could not easily subdue, the father diligently sought his child. At length a people were found, who held a captive that answered the description of the trader. We shall not dwell on the feelings with which Content approached the village that contained this little descendant of a white race. He had not concealed his errand; and the sacred character, in which he came, found pity and respect even among those barbarous tenants of the wilderness. A deputation of the chiefs received him in the skirts of their clearing. He was conducted to a wigwam, where a council-fire was lighted, and an interpreter opened the subject, by placing the amount of the ransom offered, and the professions of peace with which the strangers came, in the fairest light before his auditors. It is not usual for the American savage to loosen his hold easily, on one naturalized in his tribe. But the meek air and noble confidence of Content touched the latent qualities of those generous though fierce children of the woods. The girl was sent for, that she might stand in the presence of the elders of the nation.