'But he might have had his will; she is a lone girl; and her unnatural father was no less eager that the marriage should be than the baseborn himself. Let it be!' Then a startled gleam came into his face.

'Ah, the sleuth-hounds are everywhere around,' he cried, as faint and confused shouts came from the road and the country side. 'But I am safe here, at least for a time;' and he looked gratefully at the grand sheltering solitude about him. No footprint desecrated this sanctuary of nature.

He had taken nothing to eat since the evening before; and pangs of hunger began to gnaw him. He walked a short way toward a large, grey rock near which he heard a gurgling sound; and as he advanced he saw that a little stream of water gushed from beneath the base. He drank copiously of the pure, cold spring, and bathed his temples; but in carrying the water to his forehead he noticed that one of his hands was crusted with blood. Then for the first time had the thought of his wound recurred to him.

Stripping himself of his coat, waistcoat and shirt, he perceived that he had lost an immense quantity of blood. Tearing a piece off his linen shirt he proceeded to moisten the coagulated blood to ascertain the nature of his hurt. He soon found that the ball had hit him obliquely upon the breast, glanced, and gone round, making a serious flesh wound. Probing with his finger he located the ball which had lodged in the muscles under his left arm. Taking his knife he inserted the hook with which it was luckily supplied, and, after much pain, and rending of the flesh and muscles, extracted the bullet. The bleeding soon became less copious; and from this he took much heart, for he was assured that no artery was severed. Having washed the wound he proceeded to make some lint, which he applied as skilfully as a surgeon could have done, after which he went to a fir tree and therefrom obtained a quantity of balsam.

His long experience as a hunter had taught him how to manage wounds; and he now prepared a number of narrow strips of linen. Upon each of these he spread a quantity of the fir balsam; and then put the strip across the wound. About a dozen similar pieces were laid across, and these held the wound together; after which he placed a couple of larger slips along the wound at right angles to the shorter pieces. He then dressed and seated himself upon a tree-bole, and once more became buried in his gloomy reflections.

It was not of his love that next he thought, but of his wretched predicament. He was aware that in his own territory he was exposed to constant danger of detection, yet he plainly saw that escape to the United States was impossible in his present apparel. The hue-and-cry would describe him accurately; the law would put a price upon his head; and what the cupidity of ordinary mankind is he well knew. He had a half dozen sovereigns and a bank-note in his pocket-book; but were he to attempt to purchase rougher clothes attention would at once be attracted to him. As the afternoon wore on hunger continued to torment him with increasing keenness. Knowing that upon the elevated ground he would be likely to find a hard-wood grove, he set out, and, after an hour's tramp, was rewarded by finding himself in a grove of beeches. He gathered nigh unto a pint of nuts which gave him some relief; and, as he passed outward again to the pine region, he found a rowan tree loaded with crimson fruit. He ate several bunches of the bitter berries, and, having sated his appetite, filled his pockets. Then, seeking a dense part of the wood, he lay down to rest. He had resolved that when night came he would set out for Markham, and, trusting that there were several farm houses near that settlement whose inmates had not heard of the duel, he determined to obtain food. What he would do afterwards, fate alone should determine. Laying his head upon a mossy hummock, comfortable as a pillow of eider down, despite the anguish of his heart, and the stinging of his wound, he was soon asleep, and dreaming of days when their was neither peril nor sorrow.

When he awoke he could perceive through the forest a slight tinge of crimson in the west; and he knew that the day was done. At first he could not collect his wits to remember how he had come hither, but a sharp pain in his breast brought back the truth in its naked hideousness. Why should he ever have awakened? Was he not happy in that sweet, sweet state wherein the present had no place, and the happy past was lived again? For while he slept he once again met Aster. Tears were in her glorious eyes, and with trembling lips she told him that she thought he would never come. And, taking him to the bank of the little stream that brawled down the rough slope of her father's common, she made him vow that he would never again leave her pining. And taking her head upon his shoulder he looked into her beautiful eyes, and he read in their tender, glimmering depths the secret that she loved him. Ah, how happy was her lot? He kissed the upturned mouth and held her to his heart. They pledged themselves to one another for ever and ever. Then the angel who watched over his sleeping flew away, and he was awake.

A sound came to his ears, Alas! it was not the music of his beloved Aster's voice--_but the baying of bloodhounds_.

'Merciful God' what chance have I with bloodhounds in this wood?' Roland exclaimed as he arose. Then he set out, as fast as he could, in the same direction which he had pursued during the morning. He was well aware that the hounds were brought into the wood at the point where he had entered it; and that they were now far upon his track. Reflecting upon his hunting experience he concluded that the cries which he could now hear, whenever he paused, were little more than half a mile behind him.

A man fleeing through such a wood as this has little need for speed with only human pursuers upon his track. But with a pack of bloodhounds holding the trail, and that keep well in advance of their followers, it was far otherwise. It was only necessary to follow the baying pack; and pursuit could thus be maintained at a pace fully as swift as the flight.

But Roland was weak from the loss of blood, and from hunger which the scant supply of beech-nuts, and the bitter rowanberries, only in small measure allayed; so it was very plain that his capture was only a question of time. But the labyrinth of forest-aisles now began to grow dimmer, and a throb of hope came into his heart as he thought of the coming darkness. Yet in this wilderness the dogs would know their game; and there was no escape by clambering a tree! Meanwhile he redoubled his exertions, now slightly altering his course. When it was fairly dark he emerged from the wood upon the road by which he had made his flight in the morning.

'Thank God. Here the dogs, among so many other scents, must miss mine.' He perceived to his great joy that there was not a star in the heavens; nor was there to be seen any of the dusky yellow in the south-east which marks the rising of the harvest moon.

The wind was blowing from the south-west, and the fugitive's eyes could see that large masses of dark cloud were rolling before the wind, and gathering to leeward like a mighty army, which halts its forces to prepare for battle. A heavy storm was brewing, and there would be no light from the moon. Providence indeed had been kind to Roland, giving in the morning the shelter of His forest's sanctuary, and now the kindly shadow of His clouds.

He had lost the sound of the pursuers, and concluded that they must have either returned for the night, or sped the opposite way. He had not gone far, when he was startled by the sharp whinny of a horse. His first impulse was to avoid the beast; but upon consideration he resolved to reconnoitre. Approaching cautiously he found that the cause of his alarm was one horse only, tied to a tree which grew by the roadside. His sight having become accustomed to the darkness he was soon able to assure himself that no human being was nigh. Proceeding then to the animal, which he found saddled--it belonged no doubt to one of the pursuers who had left it there while in the woods with the hounds--he tightened the girths, mounted and rode away. This was indeed a godsend! He had not proceeded far when he saw a horseman approaching, The stranger stopped and pulled rein.

'Hullo, Oswald; that you? I thought you should never come.' Judge the consternation to discover in the voice of the speaker that of Aster's father, the man who was the cause of all the woe and mischief. When his emotion passed he could have smitten the misguided man to the earth. Disguising his voice thoroughly, for he was an accomplished mimic, he replied:

'This is not Mr. Oswald. I am from York. Rode by the Yonge street road. I bear a special dispatch from the Government to the magistrate at Markham respecting steps to be taken for the apprehension. Good-bye, sir. I am in haste.' Before the other could reply Roland was trotting away briskly. After an hour's sharp riding he slackened his pace and allowed his horse to walk along the road.

The land dipped here slightly and the fugitive judged that he must be in the neighbourhood of River Rouge, and not far from Markham.

The forest seemed to grow thicker, and as far as he could judge through the dark, it appeared draggled and intermixed with larch and cedar. It was a lonesome spot; and Roland marvelled to himself if this could be the swamp that concealed so many mysteries, and filled all the country-side with alarm. While he was thus musing a figure sprang out of the bush and seized his bridle; at the same moment the shining barrel of a pistol gleamed in his eyes.

'Surrender, fugitive duellist!' a powerful voice shouted.

'Dismount.' Roland did so; but move which way he would the weapon still glittered in his face. As we have seen Roland had resolved that there should be no more spilling of blood, else his courage and dexterity might have enabled him to cope even with this daring captor. He was astonished to see but one person present, and looked around him for the others. But as his searching gaze could reveal nothing but the sturdy figure at his side, and the gloom-wrapped trees at the roadside, he began to reproach himself bitterly for not having been more alert. It was bitter to think that after all the excitement, strain and strategy of the morning, it should fall to his lot to be trapped in this way in the darkness of the night.

He began to wonder that his companion gave no whistle or other call for help, but remained silently standing upon the road, one hand upon the horse's bridle, the other holding the menacing pistol. At last the captor spoke.

'Know you who I am?'

'A Queen's officer.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' And the man's strong, cruel voice resounded far through the solitudes of the wood.

'No! I am not a Queen's officer; but I am captain of the sturdy men who have made yonder bush a terror to the Province of Upper Canada. I have heard about the duel and the fall of Ham. You have rid the world of at least one worthless cur, and this is why I waited for your