promise?"

"O master!" Burl at length sobbed out, "it ain't much a pore nigger kin do fur White folks in dat way; but what I kin do I will do, an' won't never stop a doin' it." Here, with a blubbering expression of grief, the poor fellow broke down.

"Your hand upon it, my good old boy," whispered the dying hunter, his breath now almost gone. "Bid Miss Jemima and dear little Bushie good-by for me, and carry them my dying blessing."

In pledge of the promise, never to be broken, Burl took the hand that was now powerless to take his, and held it till death had fixed its answering grasp and the hunter was gone to find another paradise. Then he laid his master's body upon the streamlet's brink, to wash away the blood. How gently the huge hand laved the gory locks and dashed the soft water into the dead, pale face! It was a stern, rugged, weather-beaten face; but the light of the last loving thoughts still lingered upon it, lending it a beauty in death which it had never known in life. This part of his pious duty duly done, then tenderly in his mighty arms he took up the precious burden and laid it across his shoulder to bear it to the distant home. Through the fast lengthening shadows of sunset, through the glimmering shades of twilight, through the melancholy starlight, through woods, woods, woods, he bore it, till the lamp that always burned at the little square window, when the hunter was abroad in the night, was spied from afar, telling that the faithful, loving heart was waiting and watching as she should never wait and watch again.

Burl stepped softly over the low rail-fence into the yard and laid his master's body upon a puncheon bench which stood under a forest-tree directly in front of the cabin. Having composed the limbs of the dead, he stole with noiseless tread across the porch to the cabin door, at which he softly knocked with his knuckles, but holding it fast by the latch-handle, lest it should be too suddenly opened. Straightway a quick step was heard approaching the door from within. The wooden bolt slid back with a thump, the wooden latch went up with a click, but the door remained shut.

"It's nobody but me, Miss Jemimy; nobody here but me. You's awake, is you?"

"Yea, Burl, I'm awake," answered a gentle voice within; and again the latch went up with a click.

"Not yit, Miss Jemimy, not yit. I said dare's nobody here but me; but didn't 'zacly mean what I said. You's awake, now, is you—wide awake?"

"Yes, Burl, I am wide awake, and have been all night long. But why do you ask? And why do you hold the door so fast?" And now there was a tremor of alarm in the gentle voice.

"Den, put out de light, Miss Jemimy; O put out de light!" and the great sob which shook the door told the rest.

In sweet pity we shall refrain from dwelling further upon the scene. But as Burl stood out there in the night and witnessed the widow's anguish, and heard the wail of her fatherless child, from that heart whence had ascended to heaven the promise never to be broken there rose a terrible oath that never from that day forward, while he had life in his heart and strength in his arm, should an opportunity for vengeance slip his hand. How faithfully that oath was kept full many a Red man's scalp, which hung blackening from his cabin beams, but too plainly attested.

Chapter II.

How Little Bushie Figured in the Paradise.

"No, Bushie, my boy, you can't go to the corn-field to-day," said Mrs. Reynolds to her son of nine years old, one fine May morning, about two years after the sad event recorded in the foregoing chapter. The little fellow had been teasing his mother for two or three hours to let him go to the field where Burl was plowing corn, knowing full well, as every only child does, the efficacy of importunity.

"But, mother, Burl is singing so big and glad out there, and I should so love to be with him. And I should so love to watch the squirrels running up and down the trees and along on top of the fence; and the little ground-squirrels slipping from one hollow log to another; and the little birds building their nests; and the big crows flopping their wings about the limbs of the old dead trees. And then, too, Burl would be—"

"Let Burl go on with his singing," interrupted the mother; "and let the squirrels go on with their playing; and the birds with their nest-building; and the crows with their idling about the limbs of the old dead trees. All this is very nice, I know, but hardly worth the risk you must be at in getting there to enjoy it."

"But, mother," urged Bushie, "Burl would be so glad to see me sitting up there, on top of the fence, just where he and old Cornwallis would be coming out at the end of the row. I know just 'zacly what he'd say, the minute he sees me: 'I yi, you dogs!'"

"Yes, and somebody else might be glad to find a little white boy sitting up there on top of the fence," rejoined the mother, with a warning look. "Somebody who would steal up from behind, as soft as a cat upon a bird, and before knowing it, there! you would find a big red hand clapped over your mouth to keep you from screaming for help. Then, hugged tight in a pair of red arms, cruel and strong, off you'd go through the woods and over the hills and across the Ohio to old Chillicothe, there to be made a wild Indian of, for the rest of your days, if not roasted alive at once. Only this morning, Captain Kenton, on his way from Limestone to Lexington, dropped in at breakfast-time, and told us that he had seen fresh Indian signs in the woods not more than five miles from the fort. And, Bushie, my boy, have you forgotten that only this spring Burl shot a panther in the woods between here and the field? And that only last winter he knocked a bear in the head with his ax, at the big sink-hole spring in the middle of the field? And that only last fall he trapped and killed that terrible one-eyed wolf in the black hollow just beyond the field?" And seeing her little son opening his mouth and fetching a breath for a fresh effort, the mother, with more decision, added: "No, Bushie, no! Play about the fort as much as you please, but go to the field to-day you must not, and you shall not. There!" And with this she clapped his little coon-skin cap upon his head, and ramming it down to his ears, bid him go and hunt up the other children and play at home, like mother's good boy.

Now, Bushie loved his mother dearly, even tenderly, for a juvenile pioneer, especially at meal-times and at nights; the fort, too, in bad weather, he liked well enough. But on Burl, between meals, and on the woods and fields, in fine weather, he fairly doted. The weather on the present occasion was as fine as the heart of a healthy, growing, adventurous boy could wish for recreation under the open sky—it being, indeed, the last day of May, which, as nobody ever makes a holiday of it, is always perfectly delightful. Therefore was he strongly tempted to give a snapping pull at the apron-strings and make for sweet liberty—a thing he was in the habit of doing about once a week, when the keenest switching and the liveliest dancing that one could wish to witness would follow, sure as fate. To do our urchin hero justice, however, he rarely yielded to the temptation without making some considerable effort to resist it; efforts such as older transgressors are apt to set down largely to their own credit in their private accounts between self and conscience, vaguely hoping thereby to bamboozle somebody besides themselves—perhaps the recording angel. So, this morning, he hunted up the other children, as his mother had bidden him, and made a manful—nay, desperate—effort to be sportive at home; but the little fort, within the shelter of whose wooden walls had been their home ever since that melancholy night two years ago, had never seemed to him so dull and lonesome. The hunters and field-laborers, belonging to the station, were all abroad, and the other children seemed as little inclined to