afterwards, they had a great battle with the Aricarees, in which my father signally vanquished them, taking, besides a hundred scalps, many valuable furs and skins, and my father was now in St. Louis for the purpose of disposing of his peltry.

"But there is the bell ringing-the boat is about starting. I was just on my way to it when I so fortunately encountered you. Let us go."

I was full of joy at having found my father,-full of joy that I was going back to the forest to live. Not that I had no regrets at leaving Col. Overton and his kind and beautiful squaw, or that I was tired of living among the wonders and luxuries of the white man, but I wanted to revisit my old haunts, and fall into my old habits. I wanted to see Ophie again.

"My father," said I, as we were standing on the deck of the steamboat, as she was panting and screaming with impatience to be off-" father, the white man is so superior to the red. Look at that crowd of wonderful buildings-the terrible steam demons which hie at their bidding over the rushing waters, the multitude of their curious workings and contrivances; when would the Indian learn to make these things?" "Never! The white man certainly knows more than the Indian-he is wiser, but he is not better; he is not so happy nor so true. The white man is deceitful, full of lies, full of corruption. The Indian, when his passionate and impulsive temperament has not been defiled by contact with the vile pale face, is high-souled, warm-hearted and noble-and therefore is the happier. Look at the haughty white man, with his lordly mansion, his slaves, his carriage, his downy bed: he is not so happy as the light-footed Pawnee, sleeping 'neath some wide-spreading tree, with the leaves of the forest for his bed, and no covering but the pure air of heaven-his tomahawk and bow his only possessions. The white man is the ant that builds much curious architecture, and is wiser than all animals, but crawls on the earth and labors like a slave, incessantly heaping together grubs. The white man's grub is gold. The Indian is the fierce, wild goshawk, flying with free wing through the boundless air-his only home. He labors not, but takes his prey from the forest and field as he finds need."

As he was speaking, the boat rounded out into the current, the city and crowded wharf began to recede from our view, when, at the first stroke of the paddle-wheels, I thought I felt the floor of the deck sway and heave under my feet, as though it was going to turn over: at the instant my father clutched my arm, and suddenly there came a deafening report, a hot gush of steam in my face, and I felt myself shot aloft into the air, and dashed against something with such violence, that I was deprived of my

senses at once.

X. THE SUNNY SOUTH.

When I recovered my sensibilities, I was apparently awakened by a noise, which seemed to be the puffing of a steamboat. I hardly knew whether I was dead or dreaming, or what-on opening my eyes I found myself lying in a little narrow white cell, on a little narrow couch, and looking up, I discovered that Lenora was standing by my side, looking tenderly at me with her gentle brown eyes, and bathing my face, which was painful and swollen, with some cooling liquid. As I opened my eyes, a smile of joy and thank

"Where am I?" I asked faintly in my Lenora made signs to me that I was sick, and must not

fulness beamed in her sweet face.
own language.

talk, but go to sleep.
"Where is Kahtoli-my father?"

Lenora frowned and shook her head. Presently she opened the door of the state-room-I now knew it to be such-and beckoned to some one. A fine-looking intelligent man, with florid complexion, broad, bald forehead, and a mild beneficent countenance, came in, and felt my wrist with his fingers, made me poke out my tongue, smiled, nodded his head approvingly, gave Madame Lenora a phial with some reddish brown liquid in it, at the same time saying something to her in English that I did not understand. It is the medicine man," said Madame Overton, in a low voice, as he went out. She then poured out a few drops of the liquid into a spoon, and gave it to me to take. Gradually a recollection of the events narrated in the previous chapter came to my mind-my going on the boat with my father-the explosion-Kahtoli, where could he be-dead, I feared. I racked my brain to find if there was an impression there of any subsequent event-there was none. Soon an irresistible drowsiness came over me, and I fell asleep.

I must have slept for sometime-hours, at least; when I awoke it was noon-day. This time I found the rosy, goodhumored phiz of Colonel Overton leaning over me.

66

Colonel, where is my father?"

"Listen to me, my little Indian-you are now sick, the "medicine man" says it will hurt you to talk much; you had better try and go to sleep again, and we will talk about these matters when you get better."

It was two or three days that I lay cooped up in my little narrow berth, with my face swelled, my limbs and body bruised and sore, so that I could hardly turn over. After I began to grow somewhat better, I awoke one morning-a beautiful sunny morning it was-and through my open door I could see the jingling glass pendants from the gilded chandeliers in the richly furnished dining hall of the magnificent steamer we were on, glistening and glancing with beautiful prismatic colors, shed upon them by the sun's rays, reflecting gaudy striped ribbons of light on every object they fell upon. One of them was flickering about Madame Lenora's beautiful hair, as she sat by my cot-side reading.

After my morning salutation, I told her that I felt much better than usual, and obtained her permission to get up.

After dressing and washing, I made an essay to stagger into the dining cabin, and as I passed along my eye by chance rested on a large mirror, and I started back in affright at the image I found reflected there. My face was swollen and covered with scabs, and black patches of court plaster, and my long golden hair had vanished entirely, leaving a bald caput covered with a burnt crispy furze.

I found the Colonel and Madame Lenora seated out on the guards— "Hallo, Ernie, my little hero," said the former, "you look like you had been going through a pretty rough operation."

"I am thankful it is no worse,'

said Lenora, smiling. "Do you think

his beauty is spoiled, Dr. Montmery?"

"He

"Oh, not at all," said the pleasant-faced medicine-man,' who was sitting by the same who had attended on me during my illness. will come out of it unscathed-as good as new."

"Come here, Ernie, and take a seat, and spin us a yarn-give us an account of your new adventures--darn it, man, you have more 'hair-breadth 'scapes' than any person of your age and opportunities in America.”

I told them how I had got lost from Mrs. Overton, and how I had found my father, and that we had gone on board a steamboat to go back to the wilderness, but that I had been suddenly whirled into the air, and out of my senses, by some mysterious enchantment that I could not comprehend at all.

"And served you right for taking French leave of us that way, you young savage," said the Colonel.

"And so you were going away to leave us without letting us know what had become of you, or a single regret at parting from us?" asked Mrs. Overton, reproachfully.

"I had much sorrow to leave you, beautiful Madame," said I, "but what could I do otherwise-it was my father's commands. But tell me explain to me the strange enchantment by which I was deprived of my father and almost of my life? My father, where is he? does he yet live?"

"The long and the short of the whole matter is, that you were blown up in the explosion of the Phoenix steamboat-you were thrown into a ferry-boat, and taken up for dead. By rare luck, a porter on the wharf who belongs to the Planter's Hotel, where we were staying, saw you and recognized you, and had you brought up to the hotel to us. You may imagine our joy at finding you, even half dead, after having given you up for lost."

But, my father! Tell me if anything was heard of him?"

"Alas! I fear the worst, my poor boy. I learned that there were but two persons saved besides yourself-one of these was the pilot, the other a negro cook.'

"He is dead, then," said I, turning away with a stoical attempt to conceal my emotion.

It was sometime before Colonel Overton and Doctor Montmery could make me understand what they meant by a steamboat blowing up. I at length, however, gained some little insight into it, when Dr. Montmery fastened the top of a teakettle down with a piece of wire, and showed me how the steam would shoot out a cork, which he stuck in the spout.

The air was so mild and genial, that it seemed more like spring than late in October, as it actually was. Everything looked fresh and green on the low luxuriant shores of the broad muddy river down which we were going. The air was warm and balmy, and I almost imagined that the winter had passed away during the time I was stunned and senseless from my "blow-up" catastrophe.

"Madame Lenora," said I, the next evening as we stood on the guards, looking at a boat which was passing us, "Where go we?"

"To the South," said she, pointing down the river with her finger. "To Kentuckee ?"

"Not Kentucky now: we are going to Louisiana-away south; to the land of cypress, and magnolias, and sugar-cane. When spring comes, and warm weather, we will go back to Kentucky."

"It seems to me it is almost spring now."

"No, it is always spring weather in Louisiana, except in summer, when it gets so hot that we can't stay, and then we will go to Kentucky, where the weather is milder."

"You live in Kentuckee ?"

"Yes, the Colonel and I, and Dr. Montmery also, all live there; but we go south sometimes to spend the winter."

And then she told me about a beautiful home she had in Kentucky, and a pretty little girl who was a relation of hers, who lived with her brother and sister, who also had a beautiful home.

A few days after, we landed at a large plantation, the principal features of which were the vast sugar houses, the white cottages of the slaves, which formed a little village, and the swarms of negroes themselves. I spent a delightful winter here in the mild oriental winter of the south, and found so much enjoyment in various ways on the plantation, that although Mrs. Overton had been constantly telling me about Kentucky, and the agreeable friends she had there; and though the Colonel swore that leaving out the spring races on the Metairie course, which he designed visiting, he would'nt wait a moment longer before returning to that land which seemed to be an El Dorado to them both-Col. Overton declaring that but for the deer and bear hunts, and the aforesaid races, he would spend his winters in Kentucky. Yet notwithstanding all this, when spring put forth, and preparations were making for our journey up the river, I felt very loth to bid adieu to the land of magnolias, as Mrs. O. had taught me to call it. We had now been about six months in Louisiana, and the spring was far advanced ere Col. O. returned from the Metairie races, when one sunny morning we boarded a big steamer that came along, and set out for the Dark and Bloody Ground.

THE gray moonlight was casting grim, wavy shadows across the road; the hoary leafless old tree stood out in bold relief in the mysterious half light reflected from their mossy trunks: like weird sprites invoking an incantation, they stretched out their bare scraggy arms into the dim moonlit sky, where their tiny twigs were twinkling indistinctly, blending into the air, and seeming to waver with a mysterious unnatural motion; the whole forest melting away into an indefinable uncertainty of outline in the distant gloom of night.

With no knowledge of locality, and ignorant where we were, or by what surrounded-only knowing that we were going to a place, but having no idea of that place-a vague abstract notion only of somewhere, there was a solemn and intangible mystery about these dim, grim old woods. I imagined, and it was not merely the fancied association of similitude, but a fancy almost amounting to actual belief, that these woods were those of the beautiful spirit-land. There was none of the stern incorrigible logic of naked reason to drive me from my refuge in the tem

ple of magic; and I saw these trees-these vista'd shades-these quaint forms and strange sombre colorings, not as actual carbon-assimilating vegetables-not as combinations of penumbras and reflected light, but as unconnected isolations of self-existent phainomai, looming out in a curious and infinite world, untrammelled by that all-embracing law of serial uniformity-that law which says must be so, and can't be otherwise.

How gloomy and grand those dark forestal shades! How solemn the stillness of the winter night! Stands out brightly yonder a grassy slope fading down into the darkness of the tall wood at its base; a quiet sheepflock sleeping on its soft carpet, bright and silver-tinged amid the surrounding shadows. Leaning out of the coach-window to gaze on the beauty of this night-scene, I fancied that I could see airy spirits flitting to and fro in the hazy background; that I could see a ring of fairies dancing on some mossy bank, where the moon's rays, struggling through the overbending boughs, would form a halo-circle of light, or hieing with gossamer wings adown the sloping meadow; and every nook and arched avenue seemed to be tenanted by some shadowy semblance of life, hovering about through gray air. Noiseless all around, save the tramp of our horses' feet and the creaking of our carriage-wheels, which was so monotonous that it scarcely seemed to break upon the silence of the night.

The stilly night! Not a wind-sigh, not a hum, not a bug-chirp—all soundless as the spirit-land I dreamed I was in. Occasionally the baying of some distant watch-dog fell lightly on the ear, but whether it was an echo or a mere imaginary sound in the tympanum, you could not tell. Here was nothing but the moon-lumined sky, the outstanding tree-trunks, and the endless tangled tracery of boughs and twigs, the silver-glazed slope, -a peep across yonder of a skirt of low underwood, like some natural shrubbery or horticultural nursery; and at the meadow foot the glancing ribbon-like stream, with those same eternal moonbeams which pervaded everything, sheening its shadowy water, and the tall slender reeds casting their long dark pencils of shade on its limpid surface.

My two companions had for some time been wrapped in a profound silence-a low, hard breathing, seemed to indicate that the Colonel was asleep, while Lenora, if I could judge of the moonlit dreaminess of her deep brown eyes, was ruminating in fancies allied to my own.

Descending the slope, for the road ran down along-side the meadow fence, the carriage crossed the brook, and a few paces further stopped at a great gate, flanked with low massy stone turrets; this opened, we entered a long dark avenue of trees, and driving along a smooth pebbly road towards a glimmering light as of a torch or candle in the distance, we presently issued out from the shade of the park trees into an open glade, where the moon was shining brightly, showing at the other end, or side rather, for we entered it at the end, and made a turn, a white railing and wicket enclosing a profusion of shrubbery, with a gray, steep-roofed house of curious structure, with any quantity of gables and corners and chimney stacks, and various pyramidal roofed appendages and out-houses, all nestled amid the shrubbery. All was perfectly still as we entered the open glade, though by the light which I now saw emanated from one of the windows, we could see the forms of the inmates passing backward and forward.

"Ernie," said Madame Lenora, arousing herself from her half-drowsy reverie, "this is Reedyrill. Wake up, Colonel! here we are, at home.”