Of this Forrester was well aware, and he took an early period to communicate his resolution of rejecting the unmanly luxury of a bed, and sleeping like a soldier, wrapped in his cloak, with his saddle for a pillow.

In this way, the night proving unexpectedly sultry, he succeeded in enjoying more delightful and refreshing slumbers than blessed his kinswoman in her bed of down.

The song of the katydid and the cry of the whippoorwill came more sweetly to his ears from the adjacent woods; and the breeze that had stirred a thousand leagues of forest in its flight, whispered over his cheek with a more enchanting music than it made among the chinks and crannies of the wall by Edith's bed-side.

A few idle dreams,--recollections of home, mingled with the anticipated scenes of the future, the deep forest, the wild beast, and the lurking Indian,--amused, without harassing, his sleeping mind; and it was not until the first gray of dawn that he experienced any interruption.

He started up suddenly, his ears still tingling with the soft tones of an unknown voice, which had whispered in them, "Cross the river by the Lower Ford,--there is danger at the Upper." He stared around, but saw nothing all was silent around him, save the deep breathing of the sleepers at his side.