“What! And at the end of the next hundred yards, ride headlong over a precipice of fifteen hundred feet, and before night find sepulchre in the maws of fifty turkey-buzzards! I tell you there is neither a glorious death, an honorable burial nor an immortal fame to be found in such a fate! Heavens and earth, no! For instance—‘Whatever became of that poor devil, Fairfax?’ asks one. ‘Oh, one day, crossing the mountains in a fog, with his head in a mist, he had the awkwardness to pitch himself headforemost down the Devil’s Ladder, in the Alleghanies,’ answers t’other. ‘_Poor creature!_ He was always a miserable—but where was he buried?’ ‘He wa’n’t buried—the crows eat him up,’ etc., etc., etc.! Oh! I know what my posthumous fame would be in such a case. Quite different from that of the future Major-General Francis Fairfax, who, fifty years hence, at a good old age, shall die in his downy bed, with the archbishop praying by him, and be buried with the highest honors of war, and have a national monument raised to his fame, emblazoning his immortal services to his grateful country, in receiving her honors and emoluments for more that half a century! Can’t give up that glorious future for the sake of dashing myself to pieces this afternoon, Clifton. No!” said the young man, folding his arms, and striking an attitude _a-la-Napoleon_, “I have a destiny to fulfill, and shall not stir from this spot until the mist rises or falls.” “Mr. Fairfax! It is now drawing late in the afternoon. We shall have a storm before night; and a storm on the mountains, let me tell you, is a much more delightful thing to read about in Childe Harold, while stretched at your ease upon the settee in your shady piazza, than to take in _propria personæ_ on the Alleghanies,” said Captain Clifton, quietly. “Only warrant me from bringing up suddenly to the jumping-off place before I know it—and I’ll make an attempt! Yea! let him only insure my body unharmed by fire or water, and I’ll valiantly follow my leader through flood and flame!” replied Frank, recovering himself with a few more shudders, and preparing to mount. “We have left the right road about two miles behind,” said Captain Clifton, turning his horse’s head and leading the way.