loneliness which oppressed my spirits enabled me to feel even passing
interest in the things at hand.

"I 'd hate like thunder ter be a-goin' on your trip, Maester John,"
volunteered Seth at last, solemnly turning on the mare's broad back to
face me.

"And why?" I asked, wonderingly; for the man's rare gift of silence had
won him a certain reputation for deep, occult knowledge which I could
not wholly ignore. "It will bring me the sight of some wonderful
country, no doubt."

His shrewd gimlet eyes seemed fairly to pierce me, as he deliberately
helped himself to tobacco from a pouch at his waist.

"Wal, that may all be, Maester John; but I've heerd tell ther is some
most awful things goes on out yonder," and he swung his long arm
meaningly toward the west. "Animyles sich as don't prowl raound yere,
man-yeatin' snakes as big as thet tree, an' the blood-thirstiest
salvages as ever was. An' arter a while ther ain't no more trees
grows, ther lan' is thet poor, by gosh! jist a plumb dead levil er'
short grass, an' no show ter hide ner nuthin'."

"Were you ever there, Seth?" I questioned with growing anxiety, for I
had heard some such vague rumors as these before.

"Me? Not by a dinged sight!" he replied, emphatically. "This yere is
a long way further west thin I keer 'bout bein'. Ol' Vermont is plenty
good 'nough fer this chicken, an' many 's ther day I wish I was back
ther. But I hed a cousin onct who tuk ter sojerin' 'long with Gineral
Clarke, an' went 'cross them ther prairies ter git Vincennes frum the
British. Lor'! it must a' bin more ner thirty year ago! He tol' me
thet they jist hed ter wade up ter ther neck in water fer days an'
days. I ain't so durn fond o' water as all thet. An' he said as how
rattlesnakes was everywhere; an' ther Injuns was mos' twice es big es
they be yere."

"But Clarke, and nearly all of his men, got back safely," I protested.

"Oh, I guess some on 'em got back, 'cause they was an awful lot in thet
army, mighty nigh two thousand on 'em, Ephriam said; but, I tell ye,
they hed a most terrible tough time afore they did git hum. I seed my
cousin whin he kim back, an' he was jist a mere shadder; though he was
bigger ner you whin he went 'way."

"But Fort Dearborn is much farther to the north. Perhaps it will be
better up there."

"Wuss," he insisted, with a most mournful shake of the head, "a dinged
sight wuss. Ephriam said es how the further north ye wint, the tougher
i