en the others; and turning to him
as he came up, the good lady exclaimed, in a tone of astonishment:

"Why, Colonel Boone, be this here you? Why when did you come--and how
on yarth did ye git here--and what in the name o' all creation has been
happening? For ye see I war jest dosing away thar by the fire, and
dreaming all sorts of things, like all nater, when somehow I kind o'
thought I'd all at once turned into a man and gone to war a rale
soldier; and the battle had opened, and the big guns war blazing away,
and the little guns war popping off, and the soldiers war shrieking and
groaning and falling around me, like all possessed; and men a trampling,
and horses a running like skeered deer; and then I sort o' woke up, and
jumped up, and seed all them dead Injen wretches; and then I jest begun
to think as how it warn't no dream at all, but a living truth, all 'cept
my being a man and a soldier, as you com'd up. Well, ef this arn't a
queer world," resumed the good dame, catching breath meanwhile, "as
Preacher Allprayer used to say, then maybe as how I don't know nothing
at all about it."

"Your dream war a very nateral one, Mrs. Younker," returned Boone,
who, during the speech of the other, had been actively employed in
scattering the burning brands, to prevent the recurrence of another sad
catastrophe; "and I'm rejoiced to see that you've escaped unharmed, amid
this bloody work. Allow me to set you free;" and as he spoke, he drew his
scalping knife, and severed the thongs that bound her wrists.

"Gracious on me!" cried the dame, chafing the parts which had been
swollen by the tightness of the cords; "how clever 'tis to get free
agin, and have the use o' one's hands and tongue, to do and say jest
what a body pleases; for d'ye know, Colonel Boone, them thar imps of
Satan war awfully afeared o' my talking to 'em, to convince 'em they
war the meanest varmints in the whole univarsul yarth o' creation;
and actually put a peremshus stop to my saying what I thought on 'em;
although I told 'em as how it war a liberty as these blessed colonies
war this moment fighting for with the hateful red-coated Britishers.
But, Lord presarve us! gracious on us! where in marcy's sake is my dear,
darling Ella?" concluded Mrs. Younker, with vehemence and alarm, as she
now missed her adopted daughter for the first time.

"She's here, mother," answered a voice close behind her; and turning
round, the dame uttered a cry of joy, sprung into the