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 attention to the mimic stars that dimly glimmered along its moving surface. Still, his too conscious ears performed their ungrateful duty, as if to warn him of some lurking danger. At length a swift trampling seemed, quite audibly, to rush athwart the darkness. Unable any longer to quiet his uneasiness, Duncan spoke in a low voice to the scout, requesting him to ascend the mound, to the place where he stood. Hawk-eye threw his rifle across an arm, and complied, but with an air so unmoved and calm, as to prove how much he accounted on the security of their position.

"Listen," said Duncan, when the other had placed himself deliberately at his elbow; "there are suppressed noises on the plain, which may show that Montcalm has not yet entirely deserted his conquest."

"Then ears are better than eyes," said the undisturbed scout, who having just deposited a portion of a bear between his grinders, spoke thick and slow, like one whose mouth was doubly occupied; "I, myself, saw him caged in Ty, with all his host; for your Trenchers, when they have