es!" he said; "I reckoned so." It was at length the beseeching in
Polly Ann's eyes that he answered.

"A war party--tracks three days old. They took poplar."

To take poplar was our backwoods expression for embarking in a canoe, the
dugouts being fashioned from the great poplar trees.

I did not reflect then, as I have since and often, how great was the
knowledge and resource Tom practised that day. Our feeling for him
(Polly Ann's and mine) fell little 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 a