th a sigh clasped his hands over his
knee.

"Arthur Bridges," he began, "was as fine a young feller as ever the
Colonies produced; an' excep' for bein' a little wild, ye wouldn't a'
asked to clap yer eyes on a promisin'er chap. It was odd he made up t' me
the way he did, me bein' old enough to be his father, a'most, but ye see
we was both at Valley Forge together, an' all men was brothers there. We
had jist one pair o' shoes betwist us,--Art an' me--an' he wore 'em one
day, an' me the next, an' so on. When grub was scant, we shared each with
t'other, an' when he got down sick I took keer on him.

"Art tol' me all about himself then, an' it was pitiful. His ol' pap back
in Connecticut was as pesky an' ol' Tory as ever did the Continental
troops a bad turn; but his mother was loyal as anybody could be. She was
born an' bred in this kentry, an' her husband had come from England; that
was just the difference betwixt 'em, to start on. The upshot on it was,
that Art believed as his mother did, an' it was nat'ral as could be that
he should run off an' join General Washington's army. That is what he did
anyhow, an' his father swore that he hoped the lad would be killed,
though his mother was prayin' for his safety night an' day.

"Once in a long time Art would get some word from home--always from his
mother, tellin' him to stick true through thick an' thin an' all would
come right by an' by. I guess maybe he believed it would, too; but I
didn't ever have much hope on it myself. Bein' a little wild, as ye might
say, Art got wilder yet in the army, though there was always a great love
for his mother in him. But he got so toward the last that he hated his
father--yes, hated him fearful. Then for a long stretch he didn't hear
nothin' from home an' didn't see anybody as had heard anything about his
folks.

"That's how matters stood when the war was over. He says to me as how he
was goin' home, anyhow, an' I tol' him he better do that same. As for me,
I was always for rovin' an' I lit out for Kaintucky which we was hearin'
was a great place for fightin' an' huntin'. So that's how it come about
that Art an' me parted company.

"I was in Kaintucky an' 'round thar for more'n four years; some o' the
time with Col. Boone an' some o' the time with other chaps. Then I got to
longin' to go back east an' I went. I wasn't thinkin' o' meetin' up with
Art Bridges again, as I reckoned on him bein' up in Connecticut all
settled down an' marri