"A stranger!" replied Isaac, looking up in surprise. "Why, what in the name o' all creation can a stranger be wanting with me? Why don't he come and see me, if he wants to see me, and not put me to all this here trouble, jest when I'm gitting ready to go and lick some o' them red heathen like all nater?" "Don't know, sir," answered the lad, "what his reasons be for not coming, any more nor you; but he said to the man as opened the gate for him, 'Is Isaac Younker in the fort?' and the man said, 'Yes;' and then he said to me, 'Run, my little lad, and tell him to come here, and I'll gin you some thing;' and that's all I knows about it." "Well, I 'spose I'll have to go," rejoined Isaac, rising to his feet; "but I don't think much o' the feller as puts a gentleman to all this here trouble, jest for nothing at all, as one may say, when a feller's in a hurry too. Howsomever," continued he, soliloquizing, as he walked forward in the proper direction, "I 'spect it's some chap as wants to hoax me, or else he's putting on the extras; ef so, I'll fix him, so he won't want to do it agin right immediately, I reckon." Thus muttering to himself, Isaac drew near the front gate, against which, within the pallisades, the stranger in question was leaning, with his hat pressed down over his forehead, as though he desired concealment. His habiliments, after the fashion of the day, were originally of a superior quality to those generally worn on the frontiers, but soiled and torn in several places, as from the wear and tear of a long, fatiguing journey. His features, what portion of them could be seen under his hat, were pale and haggard, denoting one who had experienced many and severe vicissitudes. As Isaac approached, he raised his eyes from the ground, turned them full upon him, and then, taking a step forward, said, in a voice tremulous with emotion: "Thank God! Isaac Younker, I am able to behold you once again." As a distinct view of his features fell upon the curious gaze of the latter, and his voice sounded in his ear, Isaac paused for a moment, as one stupefied with amazement; the next, he staggered back a pace or two, dropped his hands upon his knees, in a stooping posture, as if to peer more closely into the face of the stranger; and then bounding from the earth, he uttered a wild yell of delight, threw his hat upon the ground in a transport of joy, and rushed into the extended arms of Algernon Reynolds, where he wept like a child upon his neck, neither of them able to utter a syllable for something like a minute.