ugly face of that rascal yonder showed clar; when I told her to speak to
him, which she did in rale backwood's dialect, and he died a answering
her. I then hurried round on the skirt of the wood, loading Betsey as I
went; but finding the other varmint had got off, I hastened to you and
found you senseless: the rest you know."

By this time the two had reached nearly to the foot of the hill, and
within a hundred yards of the cabin. Here they were joined by a tall,
lank, lantern-jawed, awkward young man, some twenty years of age, with
small, dark eyes, a long, peaked nose, and flaxen hair that floated down
over his ungainly shoulders, like weeping willows over a scrub oak, and
who carried in his hand a rifle nearly as long and ugly as himself.

"Why, colonel, how are ye? good even' to ye, stranger," was his
salutation, as he came up. "I war down by the tangle yonder, when I
heerd some firing, and some yelling, and I legged it home, ahead o' the
old man, just to keep the women folks in sperets, in case they war
attacked, and get a pop or so at an Injen myself; but thank the Lord,
they warn't thar; and so I ventered on, with long Nance here, to see
whar they mought be."

"Well, Isaac," returned the one addressed as colonel, "I don't doubt
your being a brave lad, and I've had some opportunity o' seeing you
tried; but being is how thar's no Indians to shoot just now, I'll ax you
to show your good qualities in another way. This young man's been badly
wounded, and ef you'll give him a little extra care, you'll put me under
obligations which I'll be happy to repay whensomever needed."

"It don't need them thar inducements you've just mentioned, colonel, to
rouse all my sympathies for a wounded stranger. Rely on't, he shan't