and that he should like to think that I might find a better place to live in, since I was young and had my life before me."

"Was that long ago?"

"Just a year. My mother had died six months earlier. The dissensions of the parent countries had begun to reach to us. We had been French and English from the beginning, but had dwelt in peace and brotherly goodwill for nigh upon eighty years. We had married amongst ourselves, so that some amongst us scarce knew whether to call themselves French or English. But for all that disunion grew and spread. Stragglers of Louisiana found their way to us. They brought new fashions of thought and teaching with them. Some Romish priests found us out, and took possession of the little chapel which Father Fritz had built with such loving care, and the Mass was said instead of that simpler service which he had drawn up for us. Many of us the priests dubbed as heretics, and because we would not change our views for them, they became angry, and we were excommunicated. It has been nothing but growing strife and disunion for the past two years. I was glad to turn my back upon it at last, and find my way to a freer land, and one where a man may worship God according to his conscience; albeit I have no desire to speak ill of the priests, who were good men, and sought to teach us what they deemed to be the truth."

"I am a Protestant," said Humphrey; "I know little about Romish devices. I was taught to hate and abhor them. We dwelt among the Quaker folk of Pennsylvania. but we are not Quakers ourselves. Out here in the wilds we must live as we can. We have the Bible--and that is all."

"People say of the Quakers that they will not fight!" said Fritz suddenly. "Is that so?"

"I know not," answered Humphrey; "I think I have heard my father say something of that sort. But surely they will fight to avenge such things as that!" and he made a gesture with his hand as though indicating the burnt homestead and the graves of the murdered woman and children.

"If they be men they surely will. You will go and tell them your story, Humphrey?"

"Ay, that I will!" answered Humphrey, between his shut teeth.

Fritz sat staring into the fire for some time, and then he too broke out with some heat.

"Yes, it is the same story all over. It was the French who came and spoiled our happy home. If they had let us alone, perchance we might have been there still, hunting, fishing, following the same kind of life as our fathers--at peace with ourselves and with the world. But they came amongst us. They sowed disunion and strife. They were resolved to get rid of the English party, as they called it. They were all softness and mildness to them. But those in whom the sturdy British spirit flourished they regarded with jealousy and dislike. They sowed the seeds of disunion. They spoiled our valley and our life. Doubtless the germs were there before, but it was the emissaries of France who wrought the mischief. If they could have done it, I believe they would have taught the Indians to distrust us English; but that was beyond their power. Even they held in loving reverence the name of Father Fritz, and none of his children, as they called us all alike, could do wrong in their eyes. So then it was their policy to get rid of such as would not own the supremacy of France in all things. I was glad at the last to go. We became weary of the bickerings and strife. Some of the elders remained behind, but the rest of us went forth to find ourselves a new home and a new country."

Humphrey listened to this tale with as much interest as it was possible for him to give to any concern other than his own. Something of that indignant hatred which was springing into active life all through the western continent began to inflame his breast. It had been no effect of Charles's inflamed imagination. The French were raising the Indians against them, and striving to overthrow England's sons wherever they had a foothold, beyond their immediate colonies. It was time they should arise and assert themselves. Humphrey's eyes kindled as he sat thinking upon these things.

"I too will go forth and fight France," he said at last; and with that resolve the sense of numb lethargy and despair fell away from him like a worn-out garment, and his old fire and energy returned.

Chapter 3: Philadelphia.

"I will go and tell my tale in the ears of my countrymen," said Charles, with steady voice but burning eyes, "and then I will go forth and fight the French, and slay and slay till they be driven from off the face of the western world!"

The fever had left Charles now. Some of his former strength had come back to him. But his brother looked at him often with wondering eyes, for it seemed to him that this Charles was a new being, with whom he had but scant acquaintance. He could not recognize in this stern faced, brooding man the quiet, homely farmer and settler whose home he had shared for so long.

Their new comrades were glad of the rest afforded them by the necessity of waiting till Charles should be fit to move. They had been travelling for many months, and the shelter of a roof--even though it was only the roof of a shed--was grateful to them.

Fritz and Charles took a strong mutual liking almost from the first. Both were men of unwonted strength and endurance, and both were fired by a strong personal enmity towards the French and their aggressive policy.

Julian told Humphrey, in their private conferences, something of the cause of this personal rancour.

"There was a fair maid in our valley--Renee we called her--and her parents were French. But we were all friends together; and Fritz and she loved each other, and were about to be betrothed. Then came these troubles, and the priest forbade Renee to wed a heretic; and though she herself would have been faithful, her parents were afraid. It seemed to all then that the French were going to be masters of the land. There was another youth who loved her also, and to him they married her. That was just before we came away--a dozen of us English youths, who could not stand the new state of things and the strife of party. Fritz has neither forgotten nor forgiven. The name of France us odious in his ears."

"And in yours, too?" asked Humphrey.

Julian's face was grave and thoughtful.

"I have my moments of passionate anger. I hate everything that is vile and treacherous and aggressive. But I would seek to remember that after all we are brothers, and that we all bear the name of Christ. That is what Father Fritz of old sought to make us remember. Perhaps it comes the easier to me in that I have French blood in my veins, albeit I regard myself now as an English subject. I have cast in my lot with the English."

Humphrey and Julian drew together, much as did Charles and Fritz. Julian was a year or two older than Humphrey, and Charles was several years older than Fritz; but all had led a free open-air life, and had tastes and feelings in common. They understood woodcraft and hunting; they were hardy, self reliant, courageous.

It was of such men as these that the best soldiers were made in the days that were at hand; although the military leaders, especially if they came from the Old World with its code of civilized warfare, were slow to recognize it.

A heavy storm of wind and rain--the precursor of the coming winter--raged round the little settlement for several days, during which the party sat round their fire, talking of the past and the future, and learning to know each other more and more intimately.

Charles recovered rapidly from the loss of blood and the fever weakness. His constitution triumphed easily over his recent illness, and he was only longing to be on the road, that he might the sooner stand face to face with the foe.

And now the storm was abating. The sun began to shine out through the driving wrack of clouds. The woodland tracks might be wet, but little reeked the travellers of that.

They bound upon their backs as much