On a tributary of the Yellowstone River, and near to the Bighorn Mountains, there stood, at the time our story opens, a cabin. Though roughly constructed, there was an air of nicety and comfort about it, which could hardly be expected in a frontier log-house. On the outside, the walls presented a comparatively smooth surface, though a glance would be sufficient to satisfy one that the work was of the axe and not of the plane. On the inside, the walls seemed to be plastered with a material, which, in its primitive state, resembled stiff brown clay; and it was through a chimney of the same substance that the smoke of the fire within found vent. A fair girl stood in the shadow of the rude doorway. Her hair, golden as the memory of childhood's days, floated in soft ringlets over her exquisitely-formed shoulders, half concealing in its wavy flow her lovely cheeks, mantling with the rich hue of life-cheeks which, long ago, might have been tinged with the sun's brown dye, but which now, miracle though it might seem, bore little trace of old Sol's scorching hand, or tell-tale mark of western marches. Blue eyes she had, and a lovely light lingered in their liquid depths, while her form was one corresponding to her face, slender, but lithe and springing, well calculated to endure, along with a stout heart, the privations which must come upon one thus so strangely out of place.