ent, for he was a better-looking man than I had ever seen. He
wore a deerskin hunting shirt dyed black, but, in place of a coonskin cap
with the tail hanging down, a hat. His long rifle rested on the ground,
and he held a roan horse by the bridle.

"Howdy, neighbor?" said he.

I recall a fear that my father would not fancy him. In such cases he
would give a stranger food, and leave him to himself. My father's whims
were past understanding. But he got up.

"Good evening," said he.

The visitor looked a little surprised, as I had seen many do, at my
father's accent.

"Neighbor," said he, "kin you keep me over night?"

"Come in," said my father.

We sat down to our supper of corn and beans and venison, of all of which
our guest ate sparingly. He, too, was a silent man, and scarcely a word
was spoken during the meal. Several times he looked at me with such a
kindly expression in his blue eyes, a trace of a smile around his broad
mouth, that I wished he might stay with us always. But once, when my
father said something about Indians, the eyes grew hard as flint. It was
then I remarked, with a boy's wonder, that despite his dark hair he had
yellow eyebrows.

After supper the two men sat on the log step, while I set about the task
of skinning the deer my father had shot that day. Presently I felt a
heavy hand on my shoulder.

"What's your name, lad?" he said.

I told him Davy.

"Davy, I'll larn ye a trick worth a little time," said he, whipping out a
knife. In a trice the red carcass hung between the forked stakes, while
I stood with my mouth open. He turned to me and laughed gently.

"Some day you'll cross the mountains and skin twenty of an evening," he
said. "Ye'll make a woodsman sure. You've got the eye, and the hand."

This little piece of praise from him made me hot all over.

"Game rare?" said he to my father.

"None sae good, now," said my father.

"I reckon not. My cabin's on Beaver Creek some forty mile above, and
game's going there, too."

"Settlements," said my father. But presently, after a few whiffs of his
pipe, he added, "I hear fine things of this land across the mountains,
that the Indians call the Dark and Bluidy Ground."

"And well named," said the stranger.

"But a brave country," said my father, "and all tramped down with game.
I hear that Daniel Boone and others have gone into it and come back with
marvellous tales. They tell me Boone was there alone three months. He's
saething