As the sound came nearer, he drew up beside a young spruce at the entrance of the thicket.

There was no necessity to alarm the house, or call the other sentry.

It was a single horse and rider, and he was equal to that.

He waited quietly, and with his usual fateful patience.

Even then his thoughts still reverted to his wife; and it was with a singular feeling that he, at last, saw the thick underbrush give way before a woman, mounted on a sweating but still spirited horse, who swept out into the open.