ed,
as usual at that hour, in an impenetrable body of darkness.

"It is unaccountable that Asa should choose to be out of the way at such
a time as this," Esther pettishly observed. "When all is finished and
to rights, we shall have the boy coming up, grumbling for his meal, and
hungry as a bear after his winter's nap. His stomach is as true as the
best clock in Kentucky, and seldom wants winding up to tell the time,
whether of day or night. A desperate eater is Asa, when a-hungered by a
little work!"

Ishmael looked sternly around the circle of his silent sons, as if to
see whether any among them would presume to say aught in favour of the
absent delinquent. But now, when no exciting causes existed to arouse
their slumbering tempers, it seemed to be too great an effort to enter
on the defence of their rebellious brother. Abiram, however, who, since
the pacification, either felt, or affected to feel, a more generous
interest in his late adversary, saw fit to express an anxiety, to which
the others were strangers--

"It will be well if the boy has escaped the Tetons!" he muttered. "I
should be sorry to have Asa, who is one of the stoutest of our party,
both in heart and hand, fall into the power of the red devils."

"Look to yourself, Abiram; and spare your breath, if you can use it only
to frighten the woman and her huddling girls. You have whitened the face
of Ellen Wade, already; who looks as pale as if she was staring to-day
at the very Indians you name, when I was forced to speak to her through
the rifle, because I couldn't reach her ears with my tongue. How was it,
Nell! you have never given the reason of your deafness?"

The colour of Ellen's cheek changed as suddenly as the squatter's
piece had flashed on the occasion to which he alluded, the burning glow
suffusing her features, until it even mantled her throat with its fine
healthful tinge. She hung her head abashed, but did not seem to think it
necessary to reply.

Ishmael, too sluggish to pursue the subject, or content with the
pointed allusion he had just made, rose from his seat on the rock,
and stretching his heavy frame, like a well-fed and fattened ox, he
announced his intention to sleep. Among a race who lived chiefly for the
indulgence of the natural wants, such a declaration could not fail of
meeting with sympathetic dispositions. One after another disappeared,
each seeking his or her rude dormitory; and, before many minutes,
Esther, who by this