"Do you know what that is, Chad?"

"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-master now.

"Well, that's"--the school-master paused to give his words effect--"that's
the old Wilderness Road."

Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness Road! The boy gripped his rifle
unconsciously, as though there might yet be a savage lying in ambush in some
covert of rhododendron close by. And, as they trudged ahead, side by side
now, for it was growing late, the school-master told him, as often before,
the story of that road and the pioneers who had trod it--the hunters,
adventurers, emigrants, fine ladies and fine gentlemen who had stained it
with their blood; and how that road had broadened into the mighty way for a
great civilization from sea to sea. The lad could see it all, as he listened,
wishing that he had lived in those stirring days, never dreaming in how
little was he of different mould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat out
the path with their moccasined feet; how little less full of danger were his
own days to be; how little different had been his own life, and was his our
pose now--how little different after all was the bourn to which his own

restless feet were bearing him.

Chad had changed a good deal since that night after Jack's trial, when the
kind-hearted old Major had turned up at Joel's cabin to take him back to the
Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoulder, deeper of chest; his mouth and
eyes were prematurely grave from much brooding and looked a little defiant,
as though the boy expected hostility from the world and was prepared to meet
it, but there was no bitterness in them, and luminous about the lad was the