By such fickle light it is impossible to read their features, but by their voices may they be recognised, engaged as they are in an earnest conversation. They are Jerry Rook and Dick Tarleton. The scene is on the bank of the sluggish stream or _bayou_, that runs past the dwelling of the hunter, and not twenty yards from the shanty itself. Out of this they have just stepped apparently for the purpose of carrying on their conversation beyond earshot of any one. The faint light burning within the cabin, that part of it that serves as sitting-room and kitchen, is from the fire. But there is no one there; no living thing save the hound slumbering upon the hearth. A still duller light from a dip candle shows through the slits of a shut door, communicating with an inner apartment. One gazing in might see the silhouette of a young girl seated by the side of a low bedstead, on which lies stretched the form of a youth apparently asleep. At all events, he stirs not, and the girl regards him in silence. There is just enough light to show that her looks are full of anxiety or sadness, but not sufficient to reveal which of the two, or whether both. The two men outside have stopped by the stem of a large cottonwood, and are but continuing a dialogue commenced by the kitchen fire, that had been kindled but for the cooking of the evening meal, now eaten. It is still warm autumn weather, and the bears have not begun to hybernate. "I tell ye, Dick," says the old hunter, whose turn it is to speak, "for you to talk o' revenge an' that sort o' thing air the darndest kind o' nonsense. Take it afore the coort ideed! What good 'ud thet do ye? They'd be the coort, an' the jedges; that is, thar fathers wud, an' ye'd stan' as much chance o' gettin' jestice out o' 'em as ye wud o' lightin' yur pipe at one o' them thar fire-bugs. They've got the money an' the inflooence, an' thar's no law in these parts, 'ithout one or the t'other." "I know it--I know it," says Tarleton, with bitter emphasis. "I reckin ye've reezun to know it, Dick, now you haven't the money to spare for sech purposes, an', therefore, on thet score 'ud stan' no chance. Besides thar's the old charge agin ye, and ye dasent appear to parsecute. It's the same men ye see, or the sons o' the same--" "Curse them! The very same. Buck, Brandon, Randall--every one of them. Oh, God! There is destiny in it! 'Twas their fathers who ruined me, blighted my whole life, and now the sons to have done this. Strange-- fearfully strange!"