Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England The Fatal Cord and The Falcon Rover By Captain Mayne Reid Published by Charles H. Clarke, 13 Paternoster Row, London. This edition dated 1872. The Fatal Cord, by Mayne Reid. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THE FATAL CORD, BY MAYNE REID. STORY ONE, CHAPTER ONE. A BIVOUAC OF BOY HUNTERS. A Hunters' bivouac under the shadows of a Mississippian forest, in a spot where the trees stand unthinned by the axe of the woodman. It is upon the Arkansas side of the great river, not far from the town of Helena, and in the direction of Little Rock, the capital of that State. The scene is a small glade, surrounded by tall cottonwood trees, one of which on each side, conspicuously "blazed," indicates a "trace" of travel. It is that leading from Helena to a settlement on the forks of the White River and Cache. The time is a quarter of a century ago, when this district of country contained a heterogeneous population, comprising some of the wildest and wickedest spirits to be found in all the length and breadth of the backwoods border. It was then the chosen home for men of fallen fortunes, lawyers and land speculators, slave-traders and swindlers, hunters, who lived by the pursuit of game, and sportsmen, whose game was cards, and whose quarry consisted of such dissolute cotton planters as, forsaking their homes in Mississippi and Tennessee, had re-established themselves on the fertile bottoms of the Saint Francis, the White and the Arkansas. A glance at the individuals comprising the bivouac in question forbids the supposition that they belong to any of the above. There are six of them; all are boys, the oldest not over twenty, while the youngest may be under sixteen. And though at the same glance you are satisfied that they are but amateur hunters, the game they have succeeded in bringing down shows them gifted not only with skill but courage in the chase. The carcase of a large bear lies beside them on the sward, his skin hanging from a tree, while several steaks cut from his fat rump, and impaled upon sapling spits, sing pleasantly over the camp fire, sending a savoury odour far into the forest around. About a dozen huge bear-hounds, several showing scars of recent conflict, lie panting upon the grass, while just half this number of saddled horses stand "hitched" to the trees. The young hunters are in high glee. They have made a creditable day's work of it, and as most of them have to go a good way before reaching home, they have halted in the glade to refresh themselves, their hounds, and their horses.