go; and
what is now an ancient land was then a half opened region, settled
only here and there by the great plantations of the well-to-do. The
house that lay at the summit of the long and gentle slope, flanked by
its wide galleries--its flung doors opening it from front to rear to
the gaze as one approached--had all the rude comfort and assuredness
usual with the gentry of that time and place.

It was the privilege, and the habit, of the Widow Lewis to sit idly
when she liked, but her attitude now was not that of idleness.
Intentness, reposeful acceptance of life, rather, showed in her
motionless, long-sustained position. She was patient, as women are;
but her strong pose, its freedom from material support, her restrained
power to do or to endure, gave her the look of owning something more
than resignation, something more than patience. A strong figure of a
woman, one would have said had one seen her, sitting on the gallery of
her old home a hundred and twenty-four years ago.

The Widow Lewis stared straight down at the gate, a quarter of a mile
away, with yearning in her gaze. But as so often happens, what she
awaited did not appear at the time and place she herself had set.
There fell at the western end of the gallery a shadow--a tall shadow,
but she did not see it. She did not hear the footfall, not stealthy,
but quite silent, with which the tall owner of the shadow came toward
her from the gallery end.

It was a young man, or rather boy, no more than eighteen years of age,
who stood now and gazed at her after his silent approach, so like that
of an Indian savage. Half savage himself he seemed now, as he stood,
clad in the buckskin garments of the chase, then not unusual in the
Virginian borderlands among settlers and hunters, and not held _outre_
among a people so often called to the chase or to war.

His tunic was of dressed deer hide, his well-fitting leggings also of
that material. His feet were covered with moccasins, although his hat
and the neat scarf at his neck were those of a gentleman. He was a
practical youth, one would have said, for no ornament of any sort was
to be seen upon his garb. In his hand he carried a long rifle of the
sort then used thereabout. At his belt swung the hide of a raccoon,
the bodies of a few squirrels.

Had you been a close observer, you would have found each squirrel shot
fair through the head. Indeed, a look into the gray eye of the
silent-paced youth would have assured yo