"Go, see yourself! You lose time in talking to a _squaw_, as you call us. Haste! or your bell-flower will be plucked and crushed, like that which you wear so proudly upon your breast. The wolf has slept in the lair of the forest deer: the yellow fawn will be his victim! Su-wa-nee joys at it: ha, ha, ha! Hers will not be the only heart wrung by the villainy of the false pale-face. Ha, ha, ha! Go, brave slayer of red panthers! Ah! you may go, but only to grieve: you will be too late--too late--too late!" Finishing her speech with another peal of half-maniac laughter, she snatched her pannier from the log, flung it over her shoulder, and hurried away from the spot! Her words, though ill understood, were full of fearful significance, and acted upon me like a shock--for a moment paralysing my powers both of speech and action. In my anxiety to ascertain their full meaning, I would have intercepted her retreat; but before I could recover from my unpleasant surprise, she had glided in among the shrubbery, and disappeared from my sight. CHAPTER THIRTY. A STORM WITHOUT AND WITHIN. Heading my horse to the path, I rode out of the glade; but with very different feelings from those I had on entering it. The words of this ill-starred maiden--attainted with that sibylline cunning peculiar to her race--had filled my heart with most dire forebodings. Her speech could not be mere conjecture, put forth to vex and annoy me? She had scarcely motive enough for this; besides, her display of a positive foreknowledge was proof against the supposition, that she was deceiving me? "Slayer of red panthers? You may go, but only to grieve." "Your bell-flower will be plucked and crushed like that you wear so proudly upon your breast." These, and other like innuendoes, could not be conjectural? However obtained, they betokened a knowledge of the past, with an implied forecast of the future--probable as it was painful. The "yellow fawn," too. The reference was clear; Lilian Holt was the yellow fawn. But the wolf that had "slept in its lair"? Who was the wolf? Who was to make her a victim? and how? These unpleasant interrogatives passed rapidly through my mind, and without obtaining reply. I was unable to answer them, even by conjecture. Enough that there _was_ a wolf; and that Lilian Holt was in danger of becoming his victim! This brought me to the consideration of the last words, still ringing in my ears: "You will be too late--too late!" Prompted by their implied meaning, I drove the spurs into my horse, and galloped forward--as fast as the nature of the ground would permit. My mind was in dread confusion--a chaos of doubt and fear. The half-knowledge I had obtained was more painful to endure than a misfortune well ascertained: for I suffered the associated agonies of suspense, and darkly outlined suspicion. A wolf! In what shape and guise? A victim? How, and by what means? What the nature of the predicted danger?