ded by the glare, was rushing out of his cabin, so he
thought, to rescue Miss Jemima and Bushie from the flames, when his foot
striking something soft and bulky, down with a tremendous squelch he
fell to the ground. The next moment, now wide-awake, he saw that he had
stumbled over his trusty sentinel Grumbo--when all the rest struck like
a lightning flash upon his mind, fell like a thunderbolt upon his heart.
Sad, sad to tell, the night, the friendly night, like a slighted ally,
was gone; and with it the golden chance for vengeance to the warrior,
deliverance to the captive. The day, the unwished for, the unprayed for,
the most unwelcome day, like a challenged foe, had come; and with it new
perils, tenfold risk of failure and disaster. "O Burlman Reynolds, born
of Ebony as thou wert, how couldst thou so far lose sight of the
besetting weakness of thy race, as thus, in a moment like this, on the
critical edge of hazard and hope, to trust thy limbs and senses to the
deceitful embraces of sleep? Black sluggard, avaunt! The Fighting Nigger
be upon thee!"

Full of the bitterest self-reproach, and with a feeling of
disappointment bordering on despair, Burl looked bewilderingly about
him. The newly risen sun, as if taunting him with the sorry miscarriage
of his well-laid plans, was winking at him with its great impertinent
eye, from over the hairy shoulder of a giant hill, upon whose shaggy
head stood smiling the beautiful first of June. Curling up lightly into
the clear morning air, from out a clump of lofty trees which plumed the
crest of the opposite hill, rose a slender column of smoke, betokening
the Indians already astir, and busy about their breakfast over the
rekindled camp-fire. Observing this, and that he was running some risk
of being discovered--if he had not betrayed himself already--Burl slunk
back into a thicket of papaw bushes which grew a a few paces behind him,
whence, with safety he might reconnoiter the enemy, and acquaint himself
with the nature of the neighboring grounds, if peradventure they must be
made the field of present operations.

At his feet, and putting an air-line of about four hundred yards between
his hill and the more commanding height where the Indians were camped,
ran a beautiful little valley, having its head among a cluster of lofty
hills, about two miles to the eastward, and open to view for about the
same distance to the westward, where it lost itself among another
cluster of hills. I