Let her beware! for the hour of her destruction will not be prolonged if she sells herself to sin." There was a long silence then between the three men; it was at length broken by Humphrey, who looked from one to the other, and said: "You have not yet told me of yourselves.

Who are you, and whence do you come?
I have heard of vast plains and mighty rivers in the south and west, but I know nothing beyond these forest tracks which lie about our desolated home." Fritz signed to Julian to be the speaker, and he leaned his back against the wall, clasping his hands behind his head.

The firelight gleamed upon his earnest face and shone in his brilliant eyes.
Humphrey regarded him with a species of fascination.

He had never seen a man quite of this type before.
"Have you ever heard," asked Julian, "of that great explorer La Salle, who first made the voyage of the great river Mississippi, and founded the infant colony of Louisiana, albeit he himself perished by the hand of an assassin in the wilderness, before he had half achieved the object to which he was pledged ?" "I have heard the name," said Humphrey; "I used to hear the men of Philadelphia talk of such things when I was a boy.

But he was a Frenchman." "Yes, and came with a commission from the King of France hard upon a century ago.