"O, no, no," said Little Wolf, putting her fingers to her ears, and slipping our of his way. "Bless her heart," said daddy, turning to the Doctor; "that's just the way she used to run away from me, when she was a little gal. 'Tween you and me, though, I was only going to tell her, how it wasn't the heft of this ere belt, that made me sweat so. It was sharpening these ere, on the old grindstone," and he drew forth a couple of large butcher knives, which glistened brightly in the sunbeams. "O, those knives are just what mammy wants in the kitchen; I heard her say so," said Little Wolf appearing on the piazza with the pistols. It required a vast amount of coaxing to bring the old man to terms, but finally a compromise was effected, and stowing a knife away in his coat pocket, he set out with one of the pistols, the Doctor being armed with the other. Instead of the short cut of the night before, the Doctor chose the more circuitous route through the village; if a cluster of dilapidated houses might be dignified by that name. Dr. DeWolf's old brown residence, situated on a high hill, with its piazza stretching across the front, was the most imposing edifice to be seen. The remaining comfortless dwellings, mostly log cabins, and board shanties, with their broken windows and ragged inmates, who flocked out to gaze at the strangers, presented an appearance desolate in the extreme. Even the shadow cast by old Chimney Rock, after which the place was named, added a darker aspect to the scene. Chinmey Rock was an irregular old bluff, standing like a grim old castle by the riverside, its chimney-like summit, rocky and bare, the most conspicuous object in the landscape. "What a God-forsaken place," exclaimed the doctor, involuntarily. "'Tis so, this ere is a broke-down, one-horse concern, and that ain't the wust on't, nuther," said his companion; who was almost bursting with communicativeness. "Well, what is the worst of it?" inquired the Doctor, as much to gratify the old man's weakness, as to satisfy his own curiosity.