bank. The party crossed the
stream at the shallows, then ascended the opposite shore to where our
two adventurers had made the passage an hour before the battle. Here
Burl called a halt of a few moments, that he might resume his martial
rigging left there, and give himself an appearance more becoming a great
warrior returning home to receive the honors which his valor had won for
him on the field of scalps and glory. And such was the morning of that
ever-to-be-remembered first of June, 1789.

Chapter XIII.

HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED IN HIS TRIUMPH.

"What a pity! what a pity! what a pity!" the little log mill still went
on saying to the little log fort, and making the little log fort yet
sadder and lonesomer than had it held its peace, and not tried so hard
to play the comforter.

From noon to noon, with a dreary night between, hour after hour passed
heavily, wearily by. And there, at the door of her desolate home, still
sat the widowed mother, waiting and watching, her eyes turned ever
toward the perilous north--waiting and watching as only those can wait
and watch whose hearts are telling them that any hour may bring them the
tidings that all they hold most dear on earth is lost to them forever.
In homely kindness and sympathy her neighbors strove to comfort her, and
rouse her from the lethargy of grief into which she seemed to be
sinking. They forgot how little mere words of condolence, however tender
and pitying, can avail, until the stricken heart, having taken in its
full measure of sorrow, can begin to accommodate itself to the new
presence, and be brought once more to feel that although much is lost
still more remains for gratitude and peace.

Toward noon the next day the hunters, who had gone out in pursuit of the
savages, weary and sad returned to the fort. After parting with Burl,
they had not ascended more than a mile into the hills, when the larger
trail made its reaeppearance on the banks of the more easterly of the two
forks, whose united waters formed the little river which turned the
mill of the settlement. Rejoining their parties, they had renewed the
chase with spirit, the trail now leading in a direct line toward the
Ohio, whose banks they had reached at sunset, and just in time to send a
volley of bullets after the fugitives, who, however, before the pursuers
were up with them, had regained their canoes and put a broad stretch of
the river between themselves and the perilous shore. The