of '81.
Then, early in the next year I came to Kentucky."

"You surprise me," Abner replied. "I thought you did not settle here
until after Indian depredations had ceased."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Gilcrest. "You thought I came like Abram from Ur of
the Chaldees, bringing family, servants, goods and chattels, did you?
No, I made that sort of migration several years later. I first came
alone, to spy out the land, and to find a suitable location wherein to
plant a home and rear a family. Descriptions of this new country beyond
the mountains had led me to picture it a paradise of peace and plenty
and tranquil beauty; but when I came, I found the picture obscured by
the red billows of savage warfare. Why, the first time I ever saw Mason
here, he was equipped with knife and tomahawk, rifle, pouch and
powder-horn, and just setting forth to the relief of a beleaguered
station."

"No wondeh," exclaimed Rogers, "thet you found me an' ev'ry otheh
able-bodied man uv us should'rin' our guns an' gittin' knives an'
tommyhocks ready! You see, Abner, the Injuns undeh ther white leadahs
wuz thet year mekin' a stubbo'ner an' bettah planned warfare than eveh
befoh. Ruddell's an' Martin's stations hed been demolished, an'
follerin' close hed come, airly in the spring, the defeat at Estell's,
an' a leetle later, Holder's defeat; an' heah in August, on top o' them
troubles, comes accounts uv more massacrein's an' sieges. If eveh the
right man come at the right hour, it wuz you, Hiram," Rogers continued,
"when you rid inteh Fort Houston jest afteh we'd got the news. Ez
soon's I clapped eyes on you I sized you up ez a fellah afteh my own
heart--a man ready to go whar danger wuz thickest, a man whut would
stand by a comrid tell the last drap uv his own blood wuz spilt. Will
you eveh furgit thet seventeenth o' August, Hiram, an' the tur'ble days
whut follehed on its heels?"

"Never, while life lasts," replied Gilcrest. "And, as for a comrade in
time of peril, one could not want a braver or a truer than yourself,
Mason. You see," he continued, turning to Dudley, "it was this way:
Early that morning had come tidings that the Indians, a few days
before, had surprised the scattered families around Hoy's, and had
butchered many ere they could reach the fort. Hardly had this tidings
been related before two more runners, half dead with fatigue,
half-crazed with horror, came panting in from Bryan's to tell how
Caldwell and Girty and their hordes of savag