The river was not deep, but its current was troubled and rapid.

The flames had scorched the earth to its very margin, and as the warm streams of the fluid mingled, in the cooler air of the morning, with the smoke of the raging conflagration, most of its surface was wrapped in a mantle of moving vapour.

The trapper pointed out the circumstance with pleasure, saying, as he assisted Inez to dismount on the margin of the watercourse-- "The knaves have outwitted themselves! I am far from certain that I should not have fired the prairie, to have got the benefit of this very smoke to hide our movements, had not the heartless imps saved us the trouble.

I've known such things done in my day, and done with success.
Come, lady, put your tender foot upon the ground--for a fearful time has it been to one of your breeding and skeary qualities.

Ah's me! what have I not known the young, and the delicate, and the virtuous, and the modest, to undergo, in my time, among the horrifications and circumventions of Indian warfare! Come, it is a short quarter of a mile to the other bank, and then our trail, at least, will be broken." Paul had by this time assisted Ellen to dismount, and he now stood looking, with rueful eyes, at the naked banks of the river.