Kelsy was laughing next day, down at the settlement, as he related the stranger's words, and described his insolent bearing; but his smile of scorn was turned to a frown of wrath, when the Land Agent, who happened to hear him, informed the unsuspecting squatter, that the stranger had, indeed, entered the claim his cabin was upon. Dick, on hearing this news, shivered the bottle in his hand to atoms, and drawing his breath through his teeth until it fairly whistled, he remarked-- “That stranger may have _some_ of my claim, but his share shall be my _signature to the title_.” The sun was fast sinking when Dick started home, rather limber from the effects of wrath and liquor. Having resigned himself to the care of his horse, he swung from side to side, in a state of dozing unconsciousness. When he neared his cabin, it had become pitch dark, to which, if possible, the woods bordering his claim, added a gloomier shade. The instant his horse entered beneath the foliage, a sharp pain shot through the side of the rider, so acute as to wake his powers suddenly into full consciousness. The spring he made in the saddle startled his horse forward into a rapid gait, and in an instant more, a sickly sensation robbed him of all consciousness. When he opened his eyes with returning animation, his look fell upon his faithful slave, who was bending, with an anxious countenance, over the rude couch of his master. “Bress God! Massa Dick, you knows Sam, your ole nigga--I sees you does--dars life in you yet, massa,--dar is, but dis poor nigga had amost gib you up, for sartain!” An unseen hand had, in the darkness, plunged a knife into Dick's body, as he entered the wood; he had clung to his horse's mane, until the animal stopped at his cabin door, where Sam, waiting for his master, had caught his bleeding and unconscious body in his arms as it fell reeling from the saddle. The faithful negro had staunched the blood, and applied every restorative his rude knowledge could devise; but it was long ere the eyes he so loved opened to the recollection of past events and present injury. “That was a foul dig in the ribs, Sam,” murmured his exhausted master; “but ef I don't trail up the sarpint and pull his sting out, it'll be because I and that ar old rifle of mine has to part company!” The natural strength of the patient, together with Sam's careful nursing, soon restored him to his legs, and a few days' gentle exercise imparted strength enough to his frame to support the weight of his rifle. A fixed resolve to trace the assassin added a severe cast to Dick's pale features--Sam, as he observed him, quietly shook his head, with the remark--“Ah, ah! Massa Dick's soon goin' Ingin huntin'--_sure!_”