The travellers received a hearty welcome, and a number of women immediately surrounded Winona and hurried her to the largest hut. Warren saw her once before leaving the next morning. “Good-bye, Winona; I shall return in a few weeks at longest. You are safe now until we can reach Canada.” “Good-bye, Mr. Maxwell. Do not speak so confidently. How can we tell that you will ever return or that I shall ever see Canada? I hate these good-byes,” she said, with trembling lips. Warren took the childish hand in his and kissed it. “Let us add ’God willing.’” “No more time,” called Parson Steward. “We’ve a good twenty miles and a bit before night,” the next moment they had shaken hands with Maybee and Judah, and were riding out of camp. The condition of Warren’s mind was one of bewilderment. He had never in his life imagined anything like his experiences of the past few days. Now and again across the confusion of his mind, images floated vaguely--a white throat tinted by the firelight, a supple figure, a rapt young face, a head held with all a princess’ grace, and dark, flashing eyes. The sound of a sweet voice, soft but not monotonous, fascinated his senses, as he recalled the tones repeating commonplace answers to commonplace questions. Somehow, the poor gown accented the girl’s beauty. Toward the close of the next day, the two men rode along in silence, save when Steward broke forth in song. He was singing now in a good baritone voice: “A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; A never-dying soul to save, And fit it for the skies.” Warren listened to him dreamily. The voice chimed in harmoniously with the surroundings. The evening shadows were falling rapidly and the soft twilight folded them in its embrace. Maxwell was to stop another night at the cabin, and then riding on some fifteen miles, connect with the next boat on its regular trip to St. Louis. Presently the singer changed his song to grand old “Coronation,” his powerful voice swelling on the air-waves, mingling with the rustling of the leaves stirred by the balmy air, echoing and re-echoing through the wooded glen: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” The young man wondered that he had never before realized the beauties of the noble hymn. All the while their horses covered the ground in gallant form. Wonderful to relate, they had met with no marauding parties; but here and there, Steward pointed out to him the signs of desolation in the dreary woods where once prosperous farms had smiled; now the winds sighed over barren fields and broken fences, and the ghostly ruins of charred houses lifted their scarred skeletons against the sky in a mute appeal for vengeance.