the stranger, as he watched a hawk-eyed extortioner in
drab, for these did not condescend to hunting shirts, "drat 'em, ef I had
my way I'd wring the neck of every mother's son of 'em."

I turned with a start, and there was Mr. Daniel Boone.

"Howdy, Davy," he said; "ye've growed some sence ye've ben with Clark."
He paused, and then continued in the same strain: "'Tis the same at
Boonesboro and up thar at the Falls settlement. The critters is
everywhar, robbin' men of their claims. Davy," said Mr. Boone,
earnestly, "you know that I come into Kaintuckee when it waren't nothin'
but wilderness, and resked my life time and again. Them varmints is
wuss'n redskins,--they've robbed me already of half my claims."

"Robbed you!" I exclaimed, indignant that he, of all men, should suffer.

"Ay," he said, "robbed me. They've took one claim after another, tracts
that I staked out long afore they heerd of Kaintuckee." He rubbed his
rifle barrel with his buckskin sleeve. "I get a little for my skins, and
a little by surveyin'. But when the game goes I reckon I'll go after
it."

"Where, Mr. Boone?" I asked.

"Whar? whar the varmints cyant foller. Acrost the Mississippi into the
Spanish wilderness."

"And leave Kentucky?" I cried.

"Davy," he answered sadly, "you kin cope with 'em. They tell me you're
buildin' a mill up at McChesney's, and I reckon you're as cute as any of
'em. They beat me. I'm good for nothin' but shootin' and explorin'."

We stood silent for a while, our attention caught by a quarrel which had
suddenly come out of the doorway. One of the men was Jim Willis,--my
friend of Clark's campaign,--who had a Henderson claim near Shawanee
Springs. The other was the hawk-eyed man of whom Mr. Boone had spoken,
and fragments of their curses reached us where we stood. The hunting
shirts surged around them, alert now at the prospect of a fight; men came
running in from all directions, and shouts of "Hang him! Tomahawk him!"
were heard on every side. Mr. Boone did not move. It was a common
enough spectacle for him, and he was not excitable. Moreover, he knew
that the death of one extortioner more or less would have no effect on
the system. They had become as the fowls of the air.

"I was acrost the mountain last month," said Mr. Boone, presently, "and
one of them skunks had stole Campbell's silver spoons at Abingdon.
Campbell was out arter him for a week with a coil of rope on his saddle.
But the varmint got to cover."