The Wilderness Trail By H. BEDFORD-JONES Author of "Splendour of the Gods," "The Kasbah Gate," etc. London: HURST & BLACKETT, LTD. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. THE WILDERNESS TRAIL CHAPTER I The year 1810 was more commonly known, at least in the Kentucky wilderness, as the thirty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States. Backwoods folk are simple folk, proud of what they and their fathers have done. Although split with vexatious questions of Federal or Democrat, rent asunder by argument over the Great Conspiracy of Aaron Burr, and menaced always by the gathered allied hordes of Tecumthe across the Indiana border, the settlers in and around Louisville forgot all these things in the one supreme fact that this was the thirty-fourth year of the United States. Law had come into the country, to the bitterness of many. Land-titles and sorry scoundrels had in combination ousted many a less famous man than Colonel Daniel Boone from his holdings. Whisky and lawless border-life, to say nothing of the more lawless river-ways, had ruined more than one good man both in morals and reputation. Some said the western country had gone to the dogs; others said that the dogs had all come to the western country. Both sayings were true, in a sense. So, then, in this thirty-fourth year of the United States, an old man stood on the Beargrass Creek Road, just out of Louisville, and swore volubly. A horseman had spattered him with mud. To his right was a fringe of trees, to his left the mudhole, and just beyond him was a bend in the road. The old man was only five feet ten, but was thewed like a giant. As he wiped the mud from his cheek and glared at the returning horseman, he displayed a strong, keen-eyed face which sat well above powerful shoulders and barrel-like chest. "Consarn the lawyers!" he cried angrily. "If I had my way, I'd hang every cussed lawyer in Kaintuck! Hanging's too good for 'em. Consarn 'em, I'd----" The horseman had reined in at the bend and was now back beside the old man. He was a large athletic man, dressed in fine blue broadcloth, with pudding cravat and ear-high coat collar. He leaned over in his saddle with a smile. "Sir, your pardon! The offence was unintentional. I take it that you have a grudge against lawyers, eh?" "Huh!" The other grunted angrily, yet with none of the sputtering fury of old age. His words seemed calculated, in fact. "Huh! Hain't lawyers robbed me right and left an' driv me out o' Kaintuck? You're like all of 'em, consarn ye, slick and smooth! I ain't lived seventy-six year 'thout bein' able to read a man's face. Ye black-hearted Wyandot, why didn't ye turn out o' the way--huh?"