88 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



tion, and bands of these Indians roving about, and sometimes 

 Jackson himself away." 



" No ; he don't leave often unless she goes with him ; but many 

 a night I 've kept round that house when nobody knowed it, jist 

 to know that she was sleepin', when these cusses has been about." 



" What did she say to you when she heard of your watchful- 

 ness ?" 



" How would she know ? Do you think I would tell her sich 

 like stuff? It's natural enough that I should watch fur her. 

 Wall — wall — thar are piles o' painters in this State purty as this 

 one, but there ain't no woman that is as handsome as Lou Jack- 

 son. That's so?" 



" Do you know anything about the duel that Colonel Jackson 

 fought ? " 



" I 've heern tell that it was a hard go ; they fired one at the 

 t'other till the Colonel bored his man, and then he larnt it was all 

 a mistake, and they needn't have fit at all ; but who the man was, 

 or what they fit about, I don't know. Whar 's the terbacker ? " 



I passed the pouch of squirrel-skin over to the hunter, and 

 filling his pipe again, he relapsed into a musing silence, while I 

 watched the lengthening shadows, and thought over the strange 

 life at Far Away, the moody, reckless, proud planter, and the 

 gentle though strange tastes of the daughter. What a wasting, 

 sensitive, weary heart he seemed to carry, joyous only by turns, 

 and then boisterously gay ! What a cheering controlling presence, 

 hers, so earnest and frank, yet all the while so lively and self- 

 willed ! And the house itself was a perfect mixture of roughness 

 and grace, the life within contrasting with its appearance, as did 

 the fancy of its name with the rudeness of its exterior. No news 

 of the world, no society, no lover, no music, the literature of the 

 most meagre kind, and yet the whole family instinct was graceful 

 and thoughtful, and like to no western farm that ever yet was 

 seen. 



As I thus ran on, I noticed the sun was low in the west. 



" It will be dark soon." 



" I reckon," said Mike, in his usual manner. 



" But we can't stay out here all night." 



