CHAPTER XXVI.
_Anxious fears followed by a joyful surprise--Safe home at last, and happy hearts_.
One fine afternoon, a few weeks after the storm of which we have given an account in the last chapter, old Mrs.Varley was seated beside her own chimney corner in the little cottage by the lake, gazing at the glowing logs with the earnest expression of one whose thoughts were far away.

Her kind face was paler than usual, and her hands rested idly on her knee, grasping the knitting-wires to which was attached a half-finished stocking.
On a stool near to her sat young Marston, the lad to whom, on the day of the shooting-match, Dick Varley had given his old rifle.

The boy had an anxious look about him, as he lifted his eyes from time to time to the widow's face.
"Did ye say, my boy, that they were _all_ killed ?" inquired Mrs.
Varley, awaking from her reverie with a deep sigh.
"Every one," replied Marston.

"Jim Scraggs, who brought the news, said they wos all lying dead with their scalps off.

They wos a party o' white men." Mrs.Varley sighed again, and her face assumed an expression of anxious pain as she thought of her son Dick being exposed to a similar fate.