every reason to suppose he remained in
Kentucky, fighting Indians to the last, having got so accustomed to that
species of pastime as to feel easy while practising it. We are the more
inclined to think that such was the case, as the name is not yet extinct
on the frontier; and one individual bearing it, has very recently, in one
of the fiercest, though briefest of Indian wars, covered it with immortal
lustre.

Of Ralph Stackpole, the invader of Indian horse-pounds, it was Captain
Forrester's fortune to obtain more minute, though, we are sorry to say,
scarce more satisfactory intelligence. The luck, good and bad together,
which had distinguished Roaring Ralph, in all his relations with Roland,
never, it seems, entirely deserted him. His improvident, harum-scarum
habits had very soon deprived him of all the advantages that might have
resulted from the soldier's munificent gift, and left him a landless
good-for-nothing, yet contented vagabond as before. With poverty
returned sundry peculiar propensities which he had manifested in former
days; so that Ralph again lost savour in the nostrils of his
acquaintance; and the last time that Forrester heard of him, he had got
into a difficulty in some respects similar to that in the woods of Salt
River from which Roland, at Edith's intercession, had saved him. In a
word, he was one day arraigned before a county-court in Kentucky, on a
charge of horse-stealing, and matters went hard against him, his many
offences in that line having steeled the hearts of all against him, and
the proofs of guilt, in this particular instance, being both strong and
manifold. Many an angry and unpitying eye was bent upon the unfortunate
fellow, when his counsel rose to attempt a defence;--which he did in the
following terms: "Gentlemen of the Jury," said the man of law,--"here is
a man, Captain Ralph Stackpole, indicted before you on the charge of
stealing a horse; and the affa'r is pretty considerably proved on
him."--Here there was a murmur heard throughout the court, evincing much
approbation of the counsel's frankness. "Gentlemen of the Jury,"
continued the orator, elevating his voice, "what I have to say in reply,
is, first, that that man thar', Captain Ralph Stackpole, did, in the
year seventeen seventy-nine, when this good State of Kentucky, and
particularly those parts adjacent to Bear's Grass, and the mouth
thereof, where now stands the town of Louisville, were overrun with
yelping Injun-savag