own-hearted boy of our'n. Wait a spell till ye're ez old ez I
be; then you'll never say die till ye're plumb dead."

Now, truly, though I was dismally disheartened, I could reassure him on
the point of perseverance. 'Tis an Ireton failing to lose heart and hope
when the skies are dark; but this is counterbalanced in some of us by a
certain quality of unreasoning persistence which will go on running long
after the race is well lost. My father had this stubborn virtue to the
full; and so had that old Ironside Ireton from whom we are descended.

"That's the kind o' talk!" was the old man's comment. "Now we'll set to
work in sure-enough arnest. Ez I said a spell back, my stummick is
crying cupboard till I can't make out to hear my brain a-sizzling. Maybe
you took notice o' me a-praying down yonder that the good Lord'd
vouchsafe to give us scalps _and_ provender. For our onfaithfulness He's
seed fit to withhold the one; but maybe we'll find a raven 'r two, or a
widder's mite 'r meal-bar'l, somewheres in this howling wilderness,
yit."

So saying, he summoned the Catawba with a low whistle, and when
Uncanoola joined us, told him to stay with Jennifer whilst we should
make another effort to find the ford.

"There's nobody like an Injun for a nuss when a man's chin-deep into
trouble," quoth this wise old woodsman, when we were feeling our way
cautiously along the margin of the swift little river. "If Cap'n Dick
rips and tears and pulls the grass up by the roots, the chief'll only
say, 'Wah!' If he sits up and cusses till he's black in the face, the
chief'll say, 'Ugh!' And that's just about all a man hankers for when
his sore's a-running in the night season, and all Thy waters have gone
over his head. Selah!"

Now you are to remember the sky was overcast and the night was pitchy
dark, and how the old borderer could read a sign of any sort was far
beyond my comprehension. Yet when we had gone a scant half-mile along
the river brink he stopped short, sniffed the air and stooped to feel
and grope on the ground like a blind man seeking for something he had
lost.

"Right about here-away is where they made out to cross," he announced;
"the whole enduring passel of 'em, ez I reckon--our seven varmints and
the hoss-captain's powder train. Give me the heft o' your shoulder till
we take the water and projec' 'round a spell on t'other side."

We squared ourselves, wholly by the sense of touch, with the river's
edge, locked arms for