e ground, set up a fierce bark. When arrived at the spot,
the party halted, and perceived the body of an Indian, slightly covered
with earth, leaves, and a few dry bushes. Hastily throwing off the
covering from his head, they discovered hideous features, wildly
distorted by the last throe of death, and bloody from a wound in his
forehead made by a ball. His scalp had been taken off also, by those who
buried him--from fear, probably, that he would be found by enemies, and
this secured as a trophy--a matter of disgrace which the savage, under
all circumstances, ever seeks to avoid, both for himself and friends.

"Well done, Master Reynolds!" observed Boone, musingly, spurning the
body with his foot, turning away, and resuming his journey: "You're a
brave young man; and I'll bet my life to a bar-skin, did your best under
the sarcumstances; and ef it's possible, we'll do somewhat for you in
return."

"Well, ef he arn't a brave chap--that thar same Algernon Reynolds--then
jest put it down as how Isaac Younker don't know nothing 'bout faces,"
returned the individual in question, in reply to Boone. "I never seed a
man with his fore'ed and eye as would run from danger when a friend war
by wanting his sarvice."

"Ay, he is indeed a clever youth!" rejoined Boone.

"Well, Colonel, he's all that," again returned Isaac; "and I'll al'ays
look 'pon't in the light o' a sarvice, that you jest placed him in my
hands, when he war wounded; for to do sech as him a kindness, al'ays
carries along its own reward. And Ella--my poor, sweet cousin, as war
raised up in good sarcumstances, and lost her all--she too I reckon
feels kind o' grateful to you, Colonel, besides."

"As how?" asked Boone.

"Why, I don't know's it's exactly right for me to tell as how," replied
Isaac, shrewdly, who was fearful of saying what Ella herself might wish
kept a secret.

"I understand ye," said Boone, in a low tone, heard only by Isaac; and
the subject was then changed for one more immediately connected with
their present journey.

In the course of conversation that followed, it was asked of Boone how
he chanced to be in the vicinity, and learned of the calamity that had
befallen Algernon and Ella, before any of the others; to which he
replied, by stating that he was on his way from Boonesborough to Bryan's
Station, and coming into the path just above the ravine, had been
indebted to his noble brute companion for the discovery--a circumstance
which raised