ord has been
coined--Indian-hater?"

"Even so."

"Dear me, you take it very calmly.--But really, I would like to know
something about this Indian-hating, I can hardly believe such a thing to
be. Could you favor me with a little history of the extraordinary man
you mentioned?"

"With all my heart," and immediately stepping from the porch, gestured
the cosmopolitan to a settee near by, on deck. "There, sir, sit you
there, and I will sit here beside you--you desire to hear of Colonel
John Moredock. Well, a day in my boyhood is marked with a white
stone--the day I saw the colonel's rifle, powder-horn attached, hanging
in a cabin on the West bank of the Wabash river. I was going westward a
long journey through the wilderness with my father. It was nigh noon,
and we had stopped at the cabin to unsaddle and bait. The man at the
cabin pointed out the rifle, and told whose it was, adding that the
colonel was that moment sleeping on wolf-skins in the corn-loft above,
so we must not talk very loud, for the colonel had been out all night
hunting (Indians, mind), and it would be cruel to disturb his sleep.
Curious to see one so famous, we waited two hours over, in hopes he
would come forth; but he did not. So, it being necessary to get to the
next cabin before nightfall, we had at last to ride off without the
wished-for satisfaction. Though, to tell the truth, I, for one, did not
go away entirely ungratified, for, while my father was watering the
horses, I slipped back into the cabin, and stepping a round or two up
the ladder, pushed my head through the trap, and peered about. Not much
light in the loft; but off, in the further corner, I saw what I took to
be the wolf-skins, and on them a bundle of something, like a drift of
leaves; and at one end, what seemed a moss-ball; and over it,
deer-antlers branched; and close by, a small squirrel sprang out from a
maple-bowl of nuts, brushed the moss-ball with his tail, through a hole,
and vanished, squeaking. That bit of woodland scene was all I saw. No
Colonel Moredock there, unless that moss-ball was his curly head, seen
in the back view. I would have gone clear up, but the man below had
warned me, that though, from his camping habits, the colonel could sleep
through thunder, he was for the same cause amazing quick to waken at the
sound of footsteps, however soft, and especially if human."

"Excuse me," said the other, softly laying his hand on the narrator's
wrist, "but I fear the