trapper! I made a forage or
two among the Cherokees, when I was a lad myself; and I followed mad
Anthony,[*] one season, through the beeches; but there was altogether
too much tatooing and regulating among his troops for me; so I left him
without calling on the paymaster to settle my arrearages. Though, as
Esther afterwards boasted, she had made such use of the pay-ticket, that
the States gained no great sum, by the oversight. You have heard of such
a man as mad Anthony, if you tarried long among the soldiers."

[*] Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian distinguished in the war of the
revolution, and subsequently against the Indians of the west, for
his daring as a general, by which he gained from his followers the
title of Mad Anthony. General Wayne was the son of the person
mentioned in the life of West as commanding the regiment which
excited his military ardour.

"I fou't my last battle, as I hope, under his orders," returned the
trapper, a gleam of sunshine shooting from his dim eyes, as if the
event was recollected with pleasure, and then a sudden shade of sorrow
succeeding, as though he felt a secret admonition against dwelling
on the violent scenes in which he had so often been an actor. "I was
passing from the States on the sea-shore into these far regions, when
I cross'd the trail of his army, and I fell in, on his rear, just as a
looker-on; but when they got to blows, the crack of my rifle was heard
among the rest, though to my shame it may be said, I never knew the
right of the quarrel as well as a man of threescore and ten should know
the reason of his acts afore he takes mortal life, which is a gift he
never can return!"

"Come, stranger," said the emigrant, his rugged nature a good deal
softened when he found that they had fought on the same side in the
wild warfare of the west, "it is of small account, what may be the
ground-work of the disturbance, when it's a Christian ag'in a savage. We
shall hear more of this horse-stealing to-morrow; to-night we can do no
wiser or safer thing than to sleep."

So saying, Ishmael deliberately led the way back towards his rifled
encampment, and ushered the man, whose life a few minutes before had
been in real jeopardy from his resentment, into the presence of his
family. Here, with a very few words of explanation, mingled with scarce
but ominous denunciations against the plunderers, he made his wife
acquainted with the state of things on the prair