distant expedition, and he was soon able to announce to Reginald that he was ready to start at an hour's notice.

The parting of our hero from his family was somewhat trying to his firmness; for poor Lucy, whose nerves were much affected by her own sorrows, could not control her grief; Aunt Mary also shed tears, whilst, mingled with her repeated blessings and excellent counsel, she gave him several infallible recipes for the cure of cuts, bruises, and the bite of rattle-snakes. The Colonel squeezed his hand with concealed emotion, and bid him remember those whom he left behind, and not incur any foolish risk in the pursuit of amusement, or in the excitement of Indian adventure. But it was in parting with his mother that his feelings underwent the severest trial, for her health had long been gradually declining; and although she evinced the resigned composure which marked her gentle uncomplaining character, there was a deep solemnity in her farewell benediction, arising from a presentiment that they might not meet again on this side of the grave. It required all the beauty of the scenery through which he passed, and all the constitutional buoyancy of his spirits, to enable Reginald to shake off the sadness which crept over him, when he caught from a

rising ground the last glimpse of Mooshanne; but the fresh elasticity of youth ere long prevailed, and he ran his fingers through the glossy mane that hung over Nekimi's arching crest, anticipating with pleasure the wild adventures by flood and field that they would share together.

Reginald wore the deer-skin hunting-suit that we have before described; his rifle he had sent with the canoe, the bugle was slung across his shoulders, a brace of horse-pistols were in the holsters, and a hunting-knife hanging at his girdle completed his equipment. The sturdy guide was more heavily armed; for besides his long rifle, which he never quitted, a knife hung on one side of his belt, and at the other was slung the huge axe which had procured him the name by which he was known among some of the tribes; but in spite of these accoutrements, and of the saddlebags before-mentioned, his hardy nag paced along with an enduring vigour that would hardly have been expected from one of so coarse and unpromising an exterior; sometimes their way lay through the vast prairies which were still found in the states Indiana and Illinois; at others among dense woods and rich valleys, through which flowed the various tributaries that swell Ohio's mighty stream, the guide losing no opportunity of ex

plaining to Reginald as they went, all the signs and secret indications of Indian or border woodcraft that occurred. They met with abundance of deer, and at night they made their fire; and having finished their venison supper, camped under the shelter of some ancient oak or sycamore. Thus Reginald's hardy frame became on this preliminary journey more inured to the exposure that he would have to undergo among the Osages and Delawares of the Far-west; they fell in now and then with straggling bands of hunters and of friendly Indians, but with no adventures worthy of record; and thus, after a steady march of twenty days, they reached the banks of the Mississippi, and crossed in the ferry to St. Louis.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ESCAPE OF ETHELSTON FROM GUADALOUPE, AND THE CONSEQUENCES WHICH ENSUED FROM THAT EXPEDITION,

WE left Ethelston on the deck of the little schooner, which was bearing him rapidly from the shores of Guadaloupe, under the influence of an easterly wind, so strong that all his attention was absorbed in the management of the vessel. During the night the gale increased, and blew with unabated violence for forty-eight hours. "The Sea-gull," for so she was called, scudded lightly before it; and on the third day Ethelston had made by his log upwards of five hundred miles of westerly course.

Having only two hands on board, and the weather being so uncommonly boisterous, he had been kept in constant employment, and had only been able to snatch a few brief intervals for sleep and refreshment; he found Jacques the coxswain an active able seaman, but extremely silent and re

served, obeying exactly the orders he received, but scarcely uttering a word, even to Cupid; it was he alone who attended upon the invalid and the nurse in the after-cabin; and the weather having now moderated, Ethelston asked how the youth had borne the pitching and tossing of the vessel during the late gale. Jacques replied, that he was not worse, and seemed not to suffer from the sea. The Captain was satisfied, and retired to his cabin; he had not been there long, before Cupid entered; and carefully shutting the door behind him, stood before his master with a peculiar expression of countenance, which the latter well knew to intimate some unexpected intelligence.

"Well Cupid, what is it?" said Ethelston, "is there a suspicious sail in sight?"

"Very suspicious, Massa Ethelston," replied the Black, grinning and lowering his voice to a whisper, "and suspicious goods aboard the schooner."

"What mean you, Cupid?"

"There is some trick aboard. I not like that Jacques that never speak, and I not like that sick boy and his nurse, that nobody never see."

"But why should you be angry, Cupid, with the poor boy because he is sick? I have promised to deliver him safe to his friends at New Orleans,