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THE PURSUIT ON THE RIVER.
The story of the frontier is filled with heroines, from the far days of Hannah Dustin down to the present, and Mary Newton, whom the unknown figure in the dark had just aroused, is one of them.

It had seemed to her that God himself had deserted her, but at the last moment he had sent some one.

She did not doubt, she could not doubt, because the bonds had been severed, and there she lay with a deadly weapon in either hand.
The friendly stranger who had come so silently was gone as he had come, but she was not helpless now.

Like many another frontier woman, she was naturally lithe and powerful, and, stirred by a great hope, all her strength had returned for the present.
Nobody who lives in the wilderness can wholly escape superstition, and Mary Newton began to believe that some supernatural creature had intervened in her behalf.