a matter of record.

A good part of the author's life has been spent among the children
of those old raiders--Yankee and Canadian--of the north and south
shores of the big river. Many a tale of the camp and the night
ride he has heard in the firelight of a winter's evening; long
familiar to him are the ruins of a rustic life more splendid in its
day than any north of Virginia. So his color is not all of books,
but of inheritance and of memory as well.

The purpose of this tale is to extend acquaintance with the plain
people who sweat and bled and limped and died for this Republic of
ours. Darius, or "D'ri" as the woods folk called him, was a
pure-bred Yankee, quaint, rugged, wise, truthful; Ramon had the
hardy traits of a Puritan father, softened by the more romantic
temperament of a French mother. They had no more love of fighting
than they had need of it.




CONTENTS


PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER
I.