WASSEE

Through brisk November days young Kedar and his trusty slave, Lauto,
hunted along the Calawassee, with hope to get a shot at a buck--a buck
that wore a single horn and that eluded them with easy, baffling gait
whenever they met it in the fens. Kedar was piqued at this. He drained a
deep draught and buttoned his coat with an air of resolution. "Now, by my
soul," quoth he, "I'll have that buck to-day or die myself!" Then he
laughed at the old slave, who begged him to unsay the oath, for there was
something unusual about that animal--as it ran it left no tracks, and it
passed through the densest wood without halting at trees or undergrowth.
"Bah!" retorted the huntsman. "Have up the dogs. If that buck is the
fiend himself, I'll have him before the day is out!" The twain were
quickly in their saddles, and they had not been long in the wood before
the one-horned buck was seen ahead, trotting with easy pace, yet with
marvellous swiftness.

Kedar, who was in advance, whipped up his horse and followed the deer
into a cypress grove near the Chechesee. As the game halted at a pool he
fired. The report sounded dead in the dense wood, and the deer turned
calmly, watched his pursuer until he was close at hand, then trotted away
again. All day long he held the chase. The dogs were nowhere within
sound, and he galloped through the forest, shouting and swearing like a
very devil, beating and spurring the horse until the poor creature's head
and flanks were reddened with blood. It was just at sunset that Kedar
found himself again on the bank of the Calawassee, near the point he had
left in the morning, and heard once more the baying of his hounds. At
last his prey seemed exhausted, and, swimming the river, it ran into a
thicket on the opposite side and stood still. "Now I have him!" cried the
hunter. "Hillio, Lauto! He's mine!" The old negro heard the call and
hastened forward. He heard his master's horse floundering in the swamp
that edged the river--then came a plash, a curse, and as the slave
arrived at the margin a few bubbles floated on the sluggish current. The
deer stood in the thicket, staring with eyes that blazed through the
falling darkness, and, with a wail of fear and sorrow, old Lauto fled the
spot.

REVENGE OF THE ACCABEE

The settlement made by Lord Cardross, near Beaufort, South Carolina, was
beset by Spaniards and Indians, who laid it in ashes and slew every
person in it but one. She, a child of thirt