le short of worship. In company ill
at ease, in the forest he became silent and masterful--an unerring
woodsman, capable of meeting the Indian on his own footing. And,
strangest thought of all, he and many I could name who went into
Kentucky, had escaped, by a kind of strange fate, being born in the
north of Ireland. This was so of Andrew Jackson himself.

The rest of the day he led us in silence down the trace, his eye alert
to penetrate every corner of the forest, his hand near the trigger
of his long Deckard. I followed in boylike imitation, searching
every thicket for alien form and color, and yearning for stature and
responsibility. As for poor Weldon, he would stride for hours at a time
with eyes fixed ahead, a wild figure,--ragged and fringed. And we knew
that the soul within him was torn with thoughts of his dead wife and
of his child in captivity. Again, when the trance left him, he was an
addition to our little party not to be despised.

At dark Polly Ann and I carried the packs across a creek on a fallen
tree, she taking one end and I the other. We camped there, where the
loam was trampled and torn by countless herds of bison, and had only
parched corn and the remains of a buffalo steak for supper, as the meal
was mouldy from its wetting, and running low. When Weldon had gone a
little distance up the creek to scout, Tom relented from the sternness
which his vigilance imposed and came and sat down on a log beside Polly
Ann and me.

"'Tis a hard journey, little girl," he said, patting her; "I reckon I
done wrong to fetch you."

I can see him now, as the twilight settled down over the wilderness,
his honest face red and freckled, but aglow with the tenderness it had
hidden during the day, one big hand enfolding hers, and the other on my
shoulder.

"Hark, Davy!" said Polly Ann, "he's fair tired of us already. Davy, take
me back."

"Hush, Polly Ann," he answered; delighted at her raillery. "But I've a
word to say to you. If we come on to the redskins, you and Davy make for
the cane as hard as you kin kilter. Keep out of sight."

"As hard as we kin kilter!" exclaimed Polly Ann, indignantly. "I reckon
not, Tom McChesney. Davy taught me to shoot long ago, afore you made up
your mind to come back from Kaintuckee."

Tom chuckled. "So Davy taught you to shoot," he said, and checked
himself. "He ain't such a bad one with a pistol,"--and he patted
me,--"but I allow ye'd better hunt kiver just the same. And if th