Audrey

"We are come out expressly to do so," answered the other heartily, "having

a mind to drink the King's health with our heads in the clouds! We need

another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the nets of

grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a pistole

and undying fame?"

The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy

rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, made

up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of packhorses.

Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace of wild turkeys

and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a legion of pots and

pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while the burden of several

others promised heart's content of good liquor. From the entire troop

breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and good-fellowship. The

gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances; the rangers in the rear

sat their horses and whistled to the woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the

negroes grinned broadly; even the Indians appeared a shade less saturnine

than usual. The golden sunshine poured upon them all, and the blue

mountains that no Englishman had ever passed seemed for the moment as soft

and yielding as the cloud that slept along their summits. And no man knew

what might be just beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the

great lakes and the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be

gold, glittering stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets

of the hills? It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good

company and good drink-The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had now

crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts.

"You'll not go, William!" she cried. "Remember the smoke that you saw

yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath

against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains, there

may be straying bands. I'll not let you go!"

In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely,

buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young and

gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly upon

her.

"And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?" said

the gentleman who had spoken before. "That being the case, your husband

has our permission to stay behind. On my life, 't is a shame to ride away

and leave you in danger of such marauders!"