hment for his share in the adventure. No
sooner had Bunce been laid by the heels, than Rivers, who had directed
the whole, advanced from the shelter of the cave, in company with his
lieutenant, Dillon, both armed with rifles, and, without saying a word,
singling out the tree on which Chub had perched himself, took deliberate
aim at the head of the unfortunate urchin. He saw the danger in an
instant, and his first words were characteristic: "Now don't--don't,
now, I tell you, Mr. Guy--you may hit Chub!"

"Come down, then, you rascal!" was the reply, as, with a laugh, lowering
the weapon, he awaited the descent of the spy. "And now, Bur, what have
you to say that I shouldn't wear out a hickory or two upon you?"

"My name ain't Bur, Mr. Guy; my name is Chub, and I don't like to be
called out of my name. Mother always called me Chub."

"Well, Chub--since you like it best, though at best a bur--what were you
doing in that tree? How dare you spy into my dwelling, and send other
people there? Speak, or I'll skin you alive!"

"Now, don't, Mr. Guy! Don't, I beg you! 'Taint right to talk so, and I
don't like it!--But is that your dwelling, Mr. Guy, in truth?--you
really live in it, all the year round? Now, you don't, do you?"

The outlaw had no fierceness when contemplating the object before him.
Strange nature! He seemed to regard the deformities of mind and body, in
the outcast under his eyes, as something kindred. Was there anything
like sympathy in such a feeling? or was it rather that perversity of
temper which sometimes seems to cast an ennobling feature over violence,
and to afford here and there, a touch of that moral sunshine which can
now and then give an almost redeeming expression to the countenance of
vice itself? He contemplated the idiot for a few moments with a close
eye, and a mind evidently busied in thought. Laying his hand, at length,
on his shoulder, he was about to speak, when the deformed started back
from the touch as if in horror--a feeling, indeed, fully visible in
every feature of his face.

"Now, don't touch Chub, Mr. Guy! Mother said you were a dark man, and
told me to keep clear of you. Don't touch me agin, Mr. Guy; I don't like
it."

The outlaw, musingly, spoke to his lieutenant: "And this is education.
Who shall doubt its importance? who shall say that it does not overthrow
and altogether destroy the original nature? The selfish mother of this
miserable outcast, fearing that he might be won