ith woods in it, and Indians, and an
elk or two at gaze, and a boat to get through the rapids, and a drop of
kill-devil rum, and some shooting, and a petticoat somewhere, and a hand
at cards,--just every common day! But you build your house upon
to-morrow. I care for the game, and you care for the prize. Don't go too
fast and far,--I've seen men pass the prize on the road and never know
it! Don't you be that kind, Lewis."

"I won't," said the boy. "But of course one plays to win. After supper,
will you tell me about New Orleans and the Mississippi, and the French
and the Spaniards, and the moss that hangs from the trees, and the
oranges that grow like apples? I had rather be king of that country than
Governor of Virginia."

The sun set, and the chill dusk of autumn wrapped the yellow sedge, the
dusty road, and the pines upon the horizon. The heavens were high and
cold, and the night wind had a message from the north. But it was warm
beneath the gum tree where the fire leaped and roared. In the light the
nearer leaves of the surrounding trees showed in strong relief; beyond
that copper fretwork all was blackness. Out of the dark came the
breathing of the horses, fastened near the tobacco-cask, the croaking of
frogs in a marshy place, and all the stealthy, indefinable stir of the
forest at night. At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across
the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred
and raised his head, then sank to dreams again. The tobacco-roller,
weary from the long day's travel, wrapped himself in a blanket and slept
in the lee of his thousand pounds of bright leaf, but the boy and the
hunter sat late by the fire.

"We crossed that swamp," said Gaudylock, "with the canes rattling above
our heads, and a panther screaming in a cypress tree, and we came to a
village of the Chickasaws--"

"In the night-time?"

"In the night-time, and a mockingbird singing like mad from a china
tree, and the woods all level before us like a floor,--no brush at all,
just fine grass, with flowers in it like pinks in a garden. So we smoked
the peace pipe with the Chickasaws, and I hung a wampum belt with fine
words, and we went on, the next day, walking over strawberries so thick
that our moccasins were stained red. At noon we overtook a party of
boatmen from the Ohio,--tall men they were, with beards, and dark and
dirty as Indians,--and we kept company with them through the country of
the Chickasaw