z, wuz
killed at the Licking, an' the otheh wuz captured by the savages. Seems
to me, though, I heard aftehwa'ds thet he escaped befoh they got to the
Injun town way back in Ohio, an' thet he turned up agin at Bryan's thet
fall, an' took the little Page boy back across the mountains to his own
people. Wuzn't thet the way uv it, Cynthy Ann?"

"Yes," Mrs. Rogers answered, "Mary Jane Hart, who kept the little boy
with her at the station afteh his motheh died, tole me about it the
nex' summeh when she come oveh to Houston's one day, an' uv how she
hated to part with him; fur she hed no childurn uv her own then, an'
hed took a mighty fancy to the pore little fellah."

"Speaking of Netherland's and Page's brave deed," here spoke Major
Gilcrest, "Mason, do you remember Aaron Reynolds' equally brave and
self-sacrificing rescue of young Patterson that day?"

And the two veterans, spurred by each other's promptings into livelier
recollection, painted in vivid colors many more of the stirring
incidents of that most tragic event in the annals of pioneer Kentucky,
the battle of Blue Lick Springs.

Young Dudley and Henry Rogers, their fighting blood aroused by the
realistic portrayal, sat by with kindling eyes and quickened pulses,
while each in his heart pictured some deed of daring heroism which
himself might have achieved had he been in that memorable battle.

Mrs. Rogers' sewing lay unheeded in her lap as she rocked slowly to and
fro, her gaze fixed upon the fire. She, too, was painting pictures and
seeing visions of the long ago--pictures which included not only the
heroic band of Kentucky's defenders in the midst of the bloody horrors
of that battlefield, but also that band of devoted women shut up alone
with their helpless little ones in that lonely station, not knowing
what terrible fate was befalling husbands, brothers, kinsmen out in the
wilderness, nor what even greater evils from lurking foes might at any
moment beset themselves within their stockade fortress; and her brave
lip trembled and the visions in the fire became dimmed and blurred as
she thought of that terrible ride under the scorching rays of the
August sun, and of the eighteen-months-old babe, her little William,
who, already ailing before the departure from Houston's, and unable to
bear the merciless heat of the long journey, had died in her arms at
Bryan's two days later--hours before her husband returned from that
ill-fated march to the Licking.

"No