rly sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which
two weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before.
Their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level space,
at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle
swells by which the face of the country is there diversified. The mass
of granite, rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet
above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the
veins seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters. On a tract
of several acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees had
supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth of the
land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the
travellers.

The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep;
for, so soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the
highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture
and sat erect. The deep lines of his countenance and the scattered gray
of his hair marked him as past the middle age; but his muscular frame
would, but for the effect of his wound, have been as capable of
sustaining fatigue as in the early vigor of life. Languor and
exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing glance
which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own
conviction that his pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes
to the companion who reclined by his side. The youth--for he had
scarcely attained the years of manhood--lay, with his head upon his
arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from
his wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. His right hand
grasped a musket; and, to judge from the violent action of his
features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of the conflict of
which he was one of the few survivors. A shout deep and loud in his
dreaming fancy--found its way in an imperfect murmur to his lips; and,
starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly awoke.
The first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries
respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. The latter
shook his head.

"Reuben, my boy," said he, "this rock beneath which we sit will serve
for an old hunter's gravestone. There is many and many a long mile of
howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the
smoke of my own chi