214 A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY. 



it was too late ; M'Leod was at his post ; his face was 

 turned towards Pierre, and in a cold, steady voice he 

 called out, " Are you ready ?" 



Pierre replied, " Quite ready." 



Then came, in the same measured tones, " One two 

 three!" 



Scarcely had the last word reached the trapper's 

 ears, when a bullet whistled so close past his cheek that 

 he started, and slipping upon a gnarled root, he fell to 

 the earth. At the same instant a piercing shriek rang 

 through the meadow, followed, or rather accompanied, 

 by shouts and oaths uttered in the well-known voice 

 of old Jake. Pierre sprang to his feet and rushed in 

 the direction of these sounds. A horrible foreboding 

 possessed him, which he could not define. He was 

 oppressed by a sense that something terrible had oc- 

 curred. He scarcely noticed that by his side, running 

 with swift, eager steps, was his deadly enemy, 

 M'Leod. 



A few moments sufficed to carry them within the 

 verge of the woods ; and there, stretched lifeless upon 

 the ground, her head supported across the lap of old 

 Jake, lay Miss Frazer, the life-blood streaming fast 

 from a bullet-hole in her breast, and forming a crimson 

 pool among the grass. 



With a look of speechless horror M'Leod gazed upon 

 the corpse, fair even in death. A smile seemed to part 

 her lips, and between them her pearly teeth were vis- 

 ible, as when she laughed in life. 



