ok up the trail for a way down the creek. Presently
Clark called a halt.

"I reckon that they've made for the Ohio," he said. And at this judgment
from him the guard gave a cheer that might almost have been heard in
the fields around the fort. The terror that had hovered over us all that
long summer was lifted at last.

You may be sure that Cowan carried me back to the station. "To think it
was Davy that found it!" he cried again and again, "to think it was Davy
found it!"

"And wasn't it me that said he could smell the divils," said Terence, as
he circled around us in a mimic war dance. And when from the fort they
saw us coming across the fields they opened the gates in astonishment,
and on hearing the news gave themselves over to the wildest rejoicing.
For the backwoodsmen were children of nature. Bill Cowan ran for the
fiddle which he had carried so carefully over the mountain, and that
night we had jigs and reels on the common while the big fellow played
"Billy of the Wild Woods" and "Jump Juba," with all his might, and
the pine knots threw their fitful, red light on the wild scenes of
merriment. I must have cut a queer little figure as I sat between Cowan
and Tom watching the dance, for presently Colonel Clark came up to us,
laughing in his quiet way.

"Davy," said he, "there is another great man here who would like to
see you," and led me away wondering. I went with him toward the gate,
burning all over with pride at this attention, and beside a torch there
a broad-shouldered figure was standing, at sight of whom I had a start
of remembrance.

"Do you know who that is, Davy?" said Colonel Clark.

"It's Mr. Daniel Boone," said I.

"By thunder," said Clark, "I believe the boy IS a wizard," while Mr.
Boone's broad mouth was creased into a smile, and there was a trace of
astonishment, too, in his kindly eye.

"Mr. Boone came to my father's cabin on the Yadkin once," I said; "he
taught me to skin a deer."

"Ay, that I did," exclaimed Mr. Boone, "and I said ye'd make a woodsman
sometime."

Mr. Boone, it seemed, had come over from Boonesboro to consult with
Colonel Clark on certain matters, and had but just arrived. But so
modest was he that he would not let it be known that he was in the
station, for fear of interrupting the pleasure. He was much the same as
I had known him, only grown older and his reputation now increased to
vastness. He and Clark sat on a door log talking for a long time
on Kentucky mat