reach him too."

"Well, let us be off." Leslie dipped his oars in the water and pulled
out into the stream. It was the morning after the burning of the
Lelands' home, which of course was unknown to them. For a few moments
the boat glided rapidly down the stream, when Whiteman spoke:

"Where'd you put up last night, Leslie?"

"About ten miles down the river. I ran in under the bank and had an
undisturbed night's rest?"

"Didn't hear nothin' of the red-skins?"

"No."

"Wal, it's a wonder; they're as thick as flies in August, and I
calkelate I'll have rich times with 'em."

"I cannot understand how it is, Kent, that you cherish such a deadly
hatred for these Indians."

"I have good reason," returned the hunter, compressing his lips.

"How long is it that you have felt thus?"

"Ever since I's a boy. Ever since _that_ time."

"What time, Kent?"

"I have never told you, I believe, why the sight of a red-skin throws me
into such a fit, have I?"

"No; I should certainly be glad to hear."

"Wal, it doesn't take long to tell. Yet how few persons know it except
myself. It is nigh thirty years ago," commenced Kent, "that I lived
about a dozen miles above the place that we left this morning. There I
was born and lived with my old father and mother until I was ten or
eleven years old.

"One dark, stormy night we war attacked by them red devils, and that
father and mother were butchered before my eyes. During the confusion of
the attack, I escaped to the woods and secreted m'self until it was
over. It was a hard matter to lie there, scorched by the flames of your
own home, and see your parents, while begging for mercy, tomahawked and
slain before your eyes. But in such a position I was placed, and
remained until the savages, satisfied with their bloody work, took their
departure.

"When the rain, which fell in torrents, had extinguished the smoking
ruins, I crawled from my hiding-place. I felt around until I come upon
the cold bodies of my father and mother lyin' side by side, and then
kneelin' over them, I took a fearful oath--an oath to which I have
devoted my life. I swore that as long as life was given me, it should be
used for revengin' the slaughter of my parents. That night these savages
contracted a debt of which they little dreamed. Before they left the
place, I had marked each of the dozen, and I never forgot them. For ten
years I follered and tracked them, and at the end of that time I had
sent the la