entucky.

Furthermore, she knew that Louisiana was a much less dangerous country
than the Dark and Bloody Ground. Few of the Shawanoes, Hurons, and other
actively hostile tribes ever crossed to the western side of the
Mississippi, where the Osages gave little trouble to the settlers
scattered through that immense territory.

Otto's eyes sparkled when Jack Carleton leaped to his feet and declared
he would go with him on the search for the lost horse (subject, of
course, to the consent of his mother), and the German youth looked
pleadingly toward the good woman, who, it is hardly necessary to say,
yielded consent, giving with it a large amount of motherly counsel, to
which the boys listened respectfully, though candor compels me to say
that the thoughts of both were far away among the green woods, beside
the sparkling streams, and in the shadows of the chasms, ravines, and
gloomy mountains, whither, as they well knew, the curious search would
lead them.

CHAPTER II.

A DOUBTFUL ENTERPRISE.

One of the commendable habits of the early settlers and old-fashioned
folks was that of retiring and rising early. They were ardent believers
in the saying of Poor Richard that "early to bed, and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

It was not yet nine o'clock, when Jack and Otto, despite the deep
interest they felt in their projected campaign, voluntarily withdrew to
the other room, where they fell asleep within five minutes after their
heads touched the pillow. The mother remained by the fire some time
after the boys withdrew. Her small white fingers flitted hither back and
forth, while her mild brown eyes seemed to look beyond the flashing
needles, and into the glowing coals on the hearth. Her thoughts were sad
and sorrowful, as they always were when she sat thus alone. They
wandered back to that awful time when her loved husband was stricken
down in defence of her and their little boy.

But to-night she was thinking more of that boy than of the father. She
saw how much like the latter he was growing, and she trembled when she
recalled that he was soon to start on another excursion into the
wilderness, to be gone for days, and likely for weeks, and with no
certainty of ever returning again.

As the night advanced, the fury of the storm diminished. At "low twelve"
the fall of rain ceased altogether. The wind blew strongly, sometimes
with a power which caused the strongest trees to bow their heads