in
the most peremptory manner, called upon Burlman Reynolds, that
"sleepy-headed ol' dog," to come up and report what he had been doing
all this time with "dem eyes o' his'n." Failing to render satisfactory
account, that "eberlastn' ol' fool" was taken severely to task by his
superior, and ordered to hand over the organs in question to
somebody--the Fighting Nigger, say--who could use them to some purpose,
and find for himself, instead, a "pa'r uf specs." Smarting under these
biting sarcasms, Burlman Reynolds, that "blare-eyed ol' granny," retired
to the back part of the house to keep as much as possible out of the
way, while the Fighting Nigger, having now the undivided use of "our
eyes," proceeded to look about them, if haply something might not yet be
done to straighten "our nose," which that "balky ol' dog" had run into
the wrong hole and got knocked out of joint.

The particular object which had caught Burl's eye was a mammoth
sycamore-tree which, with two huge white arms outstretched, as if to
embrace a graceful beech directly in front of it, overhung the mouth of
a glen on the opposite side of the valley. This tree, by its
peculiarities of form and situation, had served to call up in his mind a
train of recollections which told him that he had seen that valley-glade
before--though, up to this moment, in his trouble and confusion of mind,
the remembrance of the circumstance had been dodging in and out of his
memory like a half-forgotten dream. All was now as clear us the
unwelcome daylight. Three or four years before he had visited this spot
with a company of white hunters, who, with Captain Kenton for their
leader, had come thither on a hunting excursion, and for more than a
week had kindled their camp-fire at night on the self-same hill where
now was burning that of the Indians whose footsteps he was dogging. The
mammoth sycamore he had the best of reasons to remember, for just there,
round and round its great hollow trunk, over and over its great gnarled
roots, he had then fought the biggest bear-fight of all his hunting
experience--forever excepting the one wherein Grumbo had proved himself
a dog of "human feelin's."

From the acquaintance with the neighboring country which that excursion
had enabled him to make, Burl knew that the glen marked by the leaning
sycamore ran in but about two hundred yards between the opposite hills,
where it divided itself into two prongs, the more easterly one of which
led up t