“Sell her? why, I'd as soon sell my daddy, if I had one. No, we'll keep her between us. You, and Tom Dunning, and Lightfoot are the only friends I have in the world, Harry; and I want we should kinder stick together. So I've been thinking up the plan, that we ride and tie, or keep along together and foot it by turns, to-night, till we get to Westminster, when we will beat up Dunning, and leave Lightfoot with him, who can take her to some of his sly places over the mountain, and have her kept for us. Then, if one of us gets killed, or any thing, so as never to come back, let the other take her; and if both fail to come, then let Tom have her for his own.” And Bart's plan being adopted, our two humble, friendless, and nearly penniless adventurers left the wood, and entering the northern road, set forth on their destination, Woodburn first mounting the pony and keeping some hundred yards in advance, and Bart forming the rear-guard, under the agreement that the latter, on hearing any bounds of pursuit, should utter the cry of the raccoon, when both were to plunge into the woods, and remain till the danger had passed by. After travelling in this manner, and at a rapid rate, about two hours, without encountering any thing to excite their apprehension or delay their progress, they entered a long reach of unbroken forest, which neither of them remembered ever to have passed through. But not being able to conceive where they could have turned off from the river road, which was their intended route, they continued to move doubtingly onwards some miles farther, till the increasing obstructions and narrowness of the path, together with the absence of the settlements which they knew they must have found before this time on the road up the Connecticut, fully convinced Woodburn they had lost their way. And he was on the point of proposing to retrace their steps, when, descrying a light some distance ahead, emanating, as he supposed, from the hut of a new settler, he at once concluded to push on towards it, for the purpose of making inquiries of the occupants to ascertain their situation. In making for the light, of which, for a while, only feeble and occasional glimmerings could be obtained through the dense foliage that overhung the devious path, they at length came to an apparently well-cultivated opening, containing about a dozen acres, on one side of which stood a small, snug-looking stone house, built against or near a boldly projecting ledge of rocks. As they approached the house, their attention was arrested by the loud and earnest voice of a man within, engaged, evidently, in prayer. Concluding that the man was at his family evening devotions, which they had no thought of disturbing, they left the horse at a little distance from the house, and silently drawing near to the door, paused and reverently listened. A confused recollection of the supplicant's voice, together with his deep and fervid tones, his bold