The boy was rock-firm in his refusal.

"I'm obleeged to you, Major, but I reckon I better stay in the mountains."
That was all Chad would say, and at last the Major gave up and rode back over
the mountain and down the Cumberland alone, still on his quest. At a
blacksmith's shop far down the river he found a man who had "heerd tell of a
Chad Buford who had been killed in the Mexican War and whose daddy lived
'bout fifteen mile down the river." The Major found that Buford dead, but an
old woman told him his name was Chad, that he had "fit in the War o' 1812
when he was nothin' but a chunk of a boy, and that his daddy, whose name,
too, was Chad, had been killed by Injuns some'eres aroun' Cumberland Gap." By
this time the Major was as keen as a hound on the scent, and, in a cabin at
the foot of the sheer gray wall that crumbles into the Gap, he had the
amazing luck to find an octogenarian with an unclouded memory who could
recollect a queer-looking old man who had been killed by Indians --"a ole
feller with the curiosest hair I ever did see," added the patriarch. His name
was Colonel Buford, and the old man knew where he was buried, for he himself
was old enough at the time to help bury him. Greatly excited, the Major hired
mountaineers to dig into the little hill that the old man pointed out, on
which there was, however, no sign of a grave, and, at last, they uncovered
the skeleton of an old gentleman in a wig and peruke! There was little doubt
now that the boy, no matter what the blot on his 'scutcheon, was of his own
flesh and blood, and the Major was tempted to go back at once for him, but it
was a long way, and he was ill and anxious to get back home. So he took the
Wilderness Road for the Bluegrass, and wrote old Joel the facts and asked him
to send Chad to him whenever he would come. But the boy would not go. There
was no definite reason in his mind. It was a stubborn instinct merely--the
instinct of pride, of stubborn independence--of shame that festered in his
soul like a hornet's sting. Even Melissa urged him. She never tired of
hearing Chad tell about the Bluegrass country, and when she knew that the