The parting of our hero from his family was somewhat trying to his firmness; for poor Lucy, whose nerves were much affected by her own sorrows, could not control her grief. Aunt Mary also shed tears, whilst, mingled with her repeated blessings, and excellent counsel, she gave him several infallible recipes for the cure of cuts, bruises, and the bite of rattlesnakes. The Colonel squeezed his hand with concealed emotion, and bid him remember those whom he left behind, and not incur any foolish risk in the pursuit of amusement, or in the excitement of Indian adventure. But it was in parting with his mother that his feelings underwent the severest trial, for her health had long been gradually declining; and although she evinced the resigned composure which marked her gentle uncomplaining character, there was a deep solemnity in her farewell benediction, arising from a presentiment that they might not meet again on this side of the grave. It required all the beauty of the scenery through which he passed, and all the constitutional buoyancy of his spirits, to enable Reginald to shake off the sadness which crept over him, when he caught from a rising ground the last glimpse of Mooshanne; but the fresh elasticity of youth ere long prevailed, and he ran his fingers through the glossy mane that hung over Nekimi’s arching crest, anticipating with pleasure the wild adventures by flood and field that they would share together. Reginald wore the deer–skin hunting–suit that we have before described: his rifle he had sent with the canoe, the bugle was slung across his shoulders, a brace of horse–pistols were in the holsters, and a hunting–knife hanging at his girdle completed his equipment. The sturdy guide was more heavily armed; for besides his long rifle, which he never quitted, a knife hung on one side of his belt, and at the other was slung the huge axe which had procured him the name by which he was known among some of the tribes; but in spite of these accoutrements, and of the saddle–bags before mentioned, his hardy nag paced along with an enduring vigour that would hardly have been expected from one of so coarse and unpromising an exterior; sometimes their way lay through the vast prairies which were still found in the states of Indiana and Illinois; at others among dense woods and rich valleys, through which flowed the various tributaries that swell Ohio’s mighty stream, the guide losing no opportunity of explaining to Reginald as they went all the signs and secret indications of Indian or border wood–craft that occurred. They met with abundance of deer, and at night they made their fire; and, having finished their venison supper, camped under the shelter of some ancient oak or sycamore. Thus Reginald’s hardy frame became on this preliminary journey more inured to the exposure that he would have to undergo among the Osages and Delawares of the Far–west: they fell in now and then with straggling bands of hunters and of