r the whole, said, in a sad voice:

"Well, lads, one o' our party's gone to his last account, I perceive,"
and he pointed mournfully to the still body of Beecher, some three or
four paces distant; "another I see is wounded, and a third's missing.
I hope no harm's befallen him, the noble Master Harry Millbanks!"

"Alas! he's dead, Colonel!" answered Isaac, covering his eyes with his
hand.

"Dead?" echoed Boone.

"Dead?" cried the others, simultaneously.

"Yes," rejoined Isaac, with a sigh; "He and I war chasing that thar
infernal renegade Girty, who war running away with Ella thar; and he'd
jest got up to him, and got him by the arm, when Girty shuk him off like
it warn't nothing at all, and then shot him dead on the spot. Ef he
hadn't a bin quite so quick about it, I think as how it wouldn't a
happened; for the next moment I hit him a rap on the head with the
butt-end o' my rifle, that sent him a staggering off, and would ha'
fetched him to the ground, ef it hadn't first struck a limb. Howsomever,
it made him let go o' Ella, and start up a new trail--jest leaving his
compliments for me in the shape of a bullet, which, ef it didn't do me
no harm, it warn't 'cause he didn't intend it to. I jest stopped to look
at poor Harry; and finding he war dead, I took Ella by the hand and come
straight down here."

"Who's that you said war dead, Isaac?" inquired his mother, who had
partially overheard the conversation.

"Harry Millbanks, mother."

"Harry Millbanks!" repeated the dame in astonishment. "What, young
Harry?--our Harry?--Goodness gracious, marcy on me! what orful mean
wretches them Injens is, to kill sech as him. Dear me! then the hull
family is gone; for I hearn from Rosetta, that her father and mother and
all war killed afore her eyes; and now she's bin taken on to be killed
too, the darling."

"Ha! yes," said Boone, as if struck with a new thought; "I remember
seeing the foot-prints of a child--war they made by this unfortunate
young man's sister?"

"I reckon as how they war," answered Mrs. Younker; "for the poor thing
war a prisoner along with us, crying whensomever she dared to, like all
nater."

"Well," rejoined the old hunter, musingly, "we've done all we could--I'm
sorry it didn't turn out better--but we must now leave their fates in
the hands o' Providence, and return to our homes. We must bury our dead
first; and I don't know o' any better way than to sink thar bodies in
the Ohio."

Accordingly,