assed, and Tom
and Ray had gone forth day after day without sight or fresh sign of
Indians, the weight lifted from our hearts. There were many things that
might yet be planted and come to maturity before the late Kentucky
frosts.

The pressure within the fort, like a flood, opened the gates of it,
despite the sturdily disapproving figure of a young man who stood silent
under the sentry box, leaning on his Deckard. He was Colonel George
Rogers Clark,[1] Commander-in-chief of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky,
whose power was reenforced by that strange thing called an education. It
was this, no doubt, gave him command of words when he chose to use them.

[1] It appears that Mr. Clark had not yet received the title of
Colonel, though he held command.--EDITOR.

"Faith," said Terence, as we passed him, "'tis a foine man he is, and a
gintleman born. Wasn't it him gathered the Convintion here in
Harrodstown last year that chose him and another to go to the Virginia
legislatoor? And him but a lad, ye might say. The divil fly away wid
his caution! Sure the redskins is as toired as us, and gone home to the
wives and childher, bad cess to thim."

And so the first day the gates were opened we went into the fields a
little way; and the next day a little farther. They had once seemed to
me an unexplored and forbidden country as I searched them with my eyes
from the sentry boxes. And yet I felt a shame to go with Polly Ann and
Mrs. Cowan and the women while James Ray and Tom sat with the guard of
men between us and the forest line. Like a child on a holiday, Polly Ann
ran hither and thither among the stalks, her black hair flying and a song
on her lips.

"Soon we'll be having a little home of our own, Davy," she cried; "Tom
has the place chose on a knoll by the river, and the land is rich with
hickory and pawpaw. I reckon we may be going there next week."

Caution being born into me with all the strength of a vice, I said
nothing. Whereupon she seized me in her strong hands and shook me.

"Ye little imp!" said she, while the women paused in their work to laugh
at us.

"The boy is right, Polly Ann," said Mrs. Harrod, "and he's got more sense
than most of the men in the fort."

"Ay, that he has," the gaunt Mrs. Cowan put in, eying me fiercely, while
she gave one of her own offsprings a slap that sent him spinning.

Whatever Polly Ann might have said would have been to the point, but it
was lost, for just then the sound of a