ath.
I was passing the small inn of the town, when a tall man, with a hunting
shirt and leggings on, stepped out and, laying his hand on my shoulder,
said: 'Stranger, they say you have just come among us, and that you are
poor; come along. I have got just five dollars, no man shall ever say
that Ralph Watts passed a moneyless man without sharing with him the
contents of his pocket--come along.' Ralph and I soon became inseparable
friends. His joys as well as his sorrows were mine; in a word, we shared
each other's sympathies; and this leads me to the scene of the log
cabin. We often hunted together, and while on our last expedition, took
an oath of friendship which should end only with death--and how soon was
it to end! We left the infant Cincinnati one summer morning at the
rising of the sun, and with our guns on our shoulders, and our pouches
well supplied with ammunition, we struck into the deep wilderness,
trusting to our own stout hearts and woodscraft for our food and safety.
We journeyed merrily along, whiling away the hours in recounting to each
other those trivial incidents of our lives which might be interesting,
or in singing snatches of song, and listening to its solemn echo as it
reverberated among the tall trees of the forest. Towards evening we
reached our first camping ground--a spot near where the town of Sharon
now stands. Here we pitched our tent, built our fire, cooked our
suppers, and prepared to pass away the evening as comfortably as two
hunters possibly could. All at once the deep stillness which reigned
around us was broken by a low cry similar to that of a panther. We both
ceased speaking and listened attentively, when the cry was repeated
still nearer, as if the arrival was rapidly advancing upon us; and thus
the cry was repeated, again and again, till its shrillness seemed not
more than a hundred yards distant, when the voice changed to that of a
yell, whose tones were so familiar to the ear of my companion as to
exert quite a visible effect upon his actions. We both sprang to our
feet and, seizing our guns, stood ready to fire at a moment's warning.
"Halloo!" cried a deep voice, just outside our camp, but instead of
answering it we nerved ourselves for a desperate encounter, feeling
assured that several Indians were lurking outside our tent. "Halloo,
white brudder, come out," cried the same voice in broken English. We
consulted for a moment and finally decided to trust, for once, to Indian
fa