ith any fears of
the kind. He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen
hemlock, listening to the boding cry of the tree-toad, and delving
with his walking-staff into a mound of black mould at his feet. As he
turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something
hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and lo! a cloven skull,
with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on
the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death-blow had
been given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had
taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors.

"Humph!" said Tom Walker, as he gave it a kick to shake the dirt from
it.

"Let that skull alone!" said a gruff voice. Tom lifted up his eyes,
and beheld a great black man seated directly opposite him, on the
stump of a tree. He was exceedingly surprised, having neither heard
nor seen any one approach; and he was still more perplexed on
observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the
stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true he was dressed in a
rude half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his
body; but his face was neither black nor copper-colour, but swarthy
and dingy, and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to
toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair, that
stood out from his head in all directions, and bore an ax on his
shoulder.

He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.

"What are you doing on my grounds?" said the black man, with a hoarse
growling voice.

"Your grounds!" said Tom, with a sneer, "no more your grounds than
mine; they belong to Deacon Peabody."

"Deacon Peabody be d--d," said the stranger, "as I flatter myself he
will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to those of
his neighbours. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring."

Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one
of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the
core, and saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first
high wind was likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was
scored the name of Deacon Peabody, an eminent man, who had waxed
wealthy by driving shrewd bargains with the Indians. He now looked
around, and found most of the tall trees marked with the name of some
great man of the colony, and all more or less scored by the