Soon after this eventful chase, Reginald obtained his uncle’s leave to obey his father’s wishes by visiting Paris for a few months. His stay there was shortened by a letter which he received from his sister Lucy, announcing to him his mother’s illness; on the receipt of which he wrote a few hurried lines of explanation to his uncle, and sailed by the first ship for Philadelphia, accompanied by the faithful Perrot, and by a large rough dog of the breed of the old Irish wolf–hound, given to him by the squire. On arriving, he found his mother better than he had expected; and, as he kissed off the tears of joy which Lucy shed on his return, he whispered to her his belief that she had a little exaggerated their mother’s illness, in order to recall him. After a short time, Ethelston also returned, and joined the happy circle assembled at Colonel Brandon’s. It was now the spring of 1797, between which time and that mentioned as the date of our opening chapter, a period of nearly two years, nothing worthy of peculiar record occurred. Reginald kept up a faithful correspondence with his kind uncle, whose letters showed how deeply he felt his nephew’s absence. Whether Monsieur Perrot interchanged letters with Mary, or consoled himself with the damsels on the banks of the Ohio, the following pages may show. His master made several hunting excursions, on which he was always accompanied by Baptiste, a sturdy backwoodsman, who was more deeply attached to Reginald than to any other being on earth; and Ethelston had, as we have before explained, undertaken the whole charge of his guardian’s vessels, with one of the largest of which he was, at the commencement of our tale, absent in the West India Islands. CHAPTER V. AN ADVENTURE IN THE WOODS.—REGINALD BRANDON MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF AN INDIAN CHIEF. It was a bright morning in April; the robin was beginning his early song, the woodpecker darted his beak against the rough bark, and the squirrel hopped merrily from bough to bough among the gigantic trees of the forest, as two hunters followed a winding path which led to a ferry across the Muskingum river.