ough the forest, a drenched
and travel-sore cortege was plodding outward. A handful of lean and
briar-infested cattle stumbled in advance, yet themselves preceded by a
vanguard of scouting riflemen, and back of the beef-animals came ponies,
galled of wither and lean of rib under long-borne pack saddles.

Behind lay memories of hard and seemingly endless journeying, of alarms,
of discouragement. Ahead lay a precarious future--and the wilderness.

The two Dorothys, Captain Caleb Parish's wife and daughter, were ending
their journey on foot, for upon them lay the duties of example and
_noblesse oblige_--but the prideful tilt of their chins was maintained
with an ache of effort, and when the cortege halted that the beasts
might blow, Caleb Parish hastened back from his place at the front to
his wife and daughter.

"It's not far now," he encouraged. "To-night, at least, we shall sleep
behind walls--even though they be only those of a block-house--and under
a roof tree."

Both of them smiled at him--yet in his self-accusing heart he wondered
whether the wife whose fortitude he was so severely taxing would not
have done better to choose his brother.

While the halted outfit stood relaxed, there sounded through the immense
voicelessness of the wilderness a long-drawn, far-carrying shout, at
which the more timid women started flutteringly, but which the vanguard
recognized and answered, and a moment later there appeared on the ledge
of an overhanging cliff the lithe, straight figure of a boy.

He stood statuesquely upright, waving his coonskin cap, and between his
long deerskin leggins and breech clout the flesh of his slim legs showed
bare, almost as bronze-dark as that of an Indian.

"That is our herald of welcome," smiled Caleb Parish. "It's young Peter
Doane--the youngest man we brought with us--and one of our staunchest as
well. You remember him, don't you, child?"

The younger Dorothy at first shook her head perplexedly and sought to
recall this youthful frontiersman; then a flash of recognition broke
over her face.

"He's the boy that lived on the woods farm, isn't he? His father was
Lige Doane of the forest, wasn't he?'

"And still is." Caleb repressed his smile and spoke gravely, for he
caught the unconscious note of condescension with which the girl used
the term of class distinction. "Only here in Kentucky, child, it is as
well to forget social grades and remember that we be all 'men of the
forest.' We are