The older my father grew, the more the idea haunted him of going with "Zack" out to the banks of the Ohio, until, as second childhood crept on him, it became a ruling whim. But crossing the Alleghany range was no light task for even a young man in those days of wagons and stage-coaches, and he never was gratified. When he was gone, I reproached myself bitterly that it had not been accomplished: it seemed so easy and natural a thing to do, now that it was too late. My old plan grew, therefore, to have a morbid interest for me. I fancied that to go over his old hunting-paths would bring my father back to me, and that, wherever he might be now, he would choose to be so brought back. About the time I was thirty, then, having no employment except an opening which Fordyce offered me in New York, I chose, instead of accepting it, to start alone on my voyage of discovery. One August morning, the air full of a gentle languor, the heavy clouds of bituminous smoke vanishing beyond the horizon in swells of intense purple and orange, which I never had seen in our pale sky, I took a boat at Pittsburg, and dropped lazily down the shining Ohio, through thick-wooded hills, and dotting little islands that thrust themselves out of the water to support only a clump of showery green willows, or an old rock, may-be, draped with delicate trailing mosses. Chance favored me. "If you want the run of the Injun forts," said the Captain, as he stood beside me on the Texas, "there's Abel Steadman aboard. He knows 'em better than anybody hereabouts,--an' knows nothin' else," dropping his voice. "I'll bring him up," which he did accordingly. Steadman was a lank, yellow-haired country-lad, habited in a suit of blue Kentucky jeans, ill-fitting, and ragged besides. He talked acutely and intelligently, however, on this subject, and gave me a clear idea of the discoveries made in Indian antiquities in that region. "The trouble was," he said, "people who had means cared nothing about the matter." The next day we naturally came together again: he had precisely the information I needed. About noon he touched me on the elbow, as I stood by the deck-railing,-- "There is where I live," pointing to a tumble-down old shanty back in a field. "There is a small mound to be opened in the adjacent farm next week. Would it interest you to see it? If so, come ashore, and stay with me for a few days." The invitation was given so simply, and as a matter of course, that I accepted it without further parley. The Steadmans were miserably poor; the young man, in his queer, blunt way, said as much, though by no means apologetically. "You are afraid of encroaching? No. We live by what we shoot or fish, Matt and I. Matt's my brother. It's not much; but if you choose to throw a line with us, it will make you easy about staying as long as you please."