When I learned of the close proximity of Black Hawk’s former home, I determined to pay it a visit, not doubting but what I could find it from Mrs. Blake’s account. This chance happily occurred the next day when trying a horse; for being carried near the river before I could bring the animal under control, I determined to go on, and doing so, soon came to the edge of a great bluff, from whence I looked down on the river across a plain that intervened. Hastening on, strangely moved, I knew not why, yet conscious that everything I saw was familiar to me, I cried aloud in surprise and terror on reaching the shore to find myself on the spot where I had emerged from the water that fatal day when we were all thrown into the foaming river together. This, then, was the abandoned ferry about which I had so often heard, and how strange that I should have lived so near the spot and not have known it. Yet not strange, for at what point we had crossed I did not know, only that some one had called it Tip Top, but whether seriously or in play I did not know. Looking out on the broad river with throbbing heart and tear-dimmed eyes, I saw again my father and mother, as on that other day, struggling in the icy water; but only for a moment and as in a vision. Their mishap, alas! like their chance of life, had passed forever. For that which the water gave up, albeit so grudgingly, the earth still more cruel, now held, and would forevermore. Grieving, I stood for a long time lost in memories of the past, and in this mood remembrance of the Indian woman who had befriended us came back to me with pleasurable sadness. With it, however, and like a flash of light in the darkness of a cloudy night, the knowledge, not before dreamed of, came to me that it was Black Hawk, and none other, who had rescued my father and mother on that fatal day; and his wife, too, the gentle doe who had so tenderly nourished us afterward. The raven feathers and towering plume of red! Why had I not known him before in all that had been said? This it was, then, unknown to me, that had ever made me tenderly responsive to all that concerned him, whether in war or peace. So much so that as I grew in years he had come to form a part of the romance of my life, not resembling others of his kind, but apart and peculiar, like some unknown deity. His gentle wife, the bent and sorrowful figure sitting desolate in the lonely cabin! Was she still there? Spurred by the thought, I turned, and urging my horse to his utmost speed rode headlong down the stream, as on that other day now so far away. Alas! on reaching the little bay I found only tangled undergrowth, too dense to penetrate, and of sign of life none whatever. Fastening my horse, I made my way as best I could to the little cabin, now wholly hidden by the rank vegetation, but only to find it still and tenantless. Reaching the door, trembling with the sorrowful recollections that flooded my heart, I lifted the latch and entered. It