Stuart was a sturdy, middle-aged farmer, who had first proposed this undertaking, and was the leading spirit of the enterprise. He was a corpulent, good-natured man, and was accompanied by his wife, and a meek, blue-eyed daughter of eighteen or twenty years. Kingman was a relative of Stuart’s, was of about the same age, and of the same pleasant, social disposition. His only child was a son, just verging into manhood, who had hopefully joined the little expedition. The third mentioned was Parks, our first acquaintance, who was about forty years of age, with a heavy grizzly beard and bushy hair, and of so irascible a disposition that he had gained the name of the “Mad Captain.” He was childless, having lost his only son in battle some years before. The party at the time we introduce them to the notice of the reader, were engaged over their evening meal, and thus the hunter Wetzel was undisturbed by the presence of any of them. Suddenly, like the flash of a demon’s eye, a bright spot of fire flamed from the inky blackness of the western shore, the sharp crack of a rifle burst upon the night air, its sullen echoes rolling far up and down the river. Not a motion or word on the flat-boat betrayed that the sound of a rifle had been heard. Wetzel was standing as usual, resting quietly on the oar, and heard the whizz of the bullet as it skimmed over the boat in front of him. Not the least discomfited, he neither spoke nor changed his position at the startling sound. A deliberate half-turning of the head and an apparently casual glance at the shore from which the shot had come, were all that betokened his knowledge of the threatened danger. There was little need of cautioning the inmates, as they were well aware of the dangers by which they were surrounded. Around Wetzel stood Kingman and Parks, while at the opposite end were young Kingman and a friend by the name of Russel. The females remained below. The night was one of those clear, beautiful ones, when the silence is so perfect that the dark forest seems to have a deep, sullen, and almost inaudible roar, and there is soft music in the hum of the myriads of insects in the air. As the moonlight rested upon the youthful, but already bronzed face of the brave Wetzel, it disclosed one of no ordinary intelligence. There is a magic power in the moonlight, when it rests like a silver veil upon the countenance, softening and mellowing the outlines, until every feature glows with a radiant mildness.