gry voice of
the Great Falls cried out to us unceasingly. Smoke rose through the
tree-tops of the island opposite, and through the new gaps of its forest
cabins could be seen. And presently, at a signal from us, a big flatboat
left its shore, swung out and circled on the polished current,
and grounded at length in the mud below us. A dozen tall boatmen,
buckskin-clad, dropped the big oars and leaped out on the bank with a
yell of greeting. At the head of them was a man of huge frame, and long,
light hair falling down over the collar of his hunting shirt. He wrung
Captain Harrod's hand.

"That there's Simon Kenton, Davy," said Cowan, as we stood watching
them.

I ran forward for a better look at the backwoods Hercules, the tales
of whose prowess had helped to while away many a winter's night in
Harrodstown Station. Big-featured and stern, yet he had the kindly eye
of the most indomitable of frontier fighters, and I doubted not
the truth of what was said of him--that he could kill any redskin
hand-to-hand.

"Clark's thar," he was saying to Captain Harrod. "God knows what his
pluck is. He ain't said a word."

"He doesn't say whar he's going?" said Harrod.

"Not a notion," answered Kenton. "He's the greatest man to keep his
mouth shut I ever saw. He kept at the governor of Virginny till he gave
him twelve hundred pounds in Continentals and power to raise troops.
Then Clark fetched a circle for Fort Pitt, raised some troops thar and
in Virginny and some about Red Stone, and come down the Ohio here with
'em in a lot of flatboats. Now that ye've got here the Kentucky boys is
all in. I come over with Montgomery, and Dillard's here from the Holston
country with a company."

"Well," said Captain Harrod, "I reckon we'll report."

I went among the first boat-load, and as the men strained against the
current, Kenton explained that Colonel Clark had brought a number of
emigrants down the river with him; that he purposed to leave them
on this island with a little force, that they might raise corn and
provisions during the summer; and that he had called the place Corn
Island.

"Sure, there's the Colonel himself," cried Terence McCann, who was
in the bow, and indeed I could pick out the familiar figure among
the hundred frontiersmen that gathered among the stumps at the
landing-place. As our keel scraped they gave a shout that rattled in the
forest behind them, and Clark came down to the waterside.

"I knew that Harrodstown