Project Gutenberg's Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia, by William Gilmore Simms

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Title: Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia

Author: William Gilmore Simms

Release Date: July 15, 2005 [EBook #16303]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY RIVERS: A TALE OF GEORGIA ***

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[Illustration: Frontispiece.]

GUY RIVERS:

A TALE OF GEORGIA.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS,

AUTHOR OF "THE YEMASSEE," "THE PARTISAN," "MELLICHAMPE,"
"KATHARINE WALTON," "THE SCOUT," "WOODCRAFT," ETC.

"Who wants
A sequel may read on. Th' unvarnished tale
That follows will supply the place of one."

ROGERS' _Italy_.

New and Revised Edition.

CHICAGO:
DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.
407-425 DEARBORN STREET

1890

PRINTED AND BOUND BY
DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY
CHICAGO.

GUY RIVERS

CHAPTER I.

THE STERILE PROSPECT AND THE LONELY TRAVELLER.

Our scene lies in the upper part of the state of Georgia, a region at
this time fruitful of dispute, as being within the Cherokee territories.
The route to which we now address our attention, lies at nearly equal
distances between the main trunk of the Chatahoochie and that branch of
it which bears the name of the Chestatee, after a once formidable, but
now almost forgotten tribe. Here, the wayfarer finds himself lost in a
long reach of comparatively barren lands. The scene is kept from
monotony, however, by the undulations of the earth, and by frequent
hills which sometimes aspire to a more elevated title. The tract is
garnished with a stunted growth, a dreary and seemingly half-withered
shrubbery, broken occasionally by clumps of slender pines that raise
their green tops abruptly, and as if out of place, against the sky.

The entire aspect of the scene, if not absolutely blasted, wears at
least a gloomy and discouraging expression, which saddens the soul of
the most careless spectator. The ragged ranges of forest, almost
untrodden by civilized man, the thin and feeble undergrowth, the
unbroken silence,