“Well, I couldn’t say how it was, exactly. He happened to hear that I was going to speak a war piece, and so he wanted to hear it. I thought it would be all right to recite it to him, and I did. He is writing a book on the old Indian wars. He said Mr. Kenashton, my father, was once a good soldier and fought under him at the battle of the Creek, that he remembered his face distinctly, and thought I had some of his marks.” “I warn you, my boy, to keep away from that old man. He’s no friend of ours, Dan, nor was he a friend to your father. Friend! Oh, my God! were he not an enemy, less bitter would be my cup. But it’s well you know not all, my boy.” “I don’t exactly understand,” replied Dan, “but I’ve wondered why we are not like other people, and why nobody cares to know us, but the old General wants to see that flint-lock and canteen, and says he intends to say something about them in his book, and so I told him I’d take them down to him to-morrow.” “Curse the old general and his book,” said the mother, thinking she had detected him in some new plot, and becoming almost mad with rage, “take them to him and bid him keep them; they are not my——ah! but it’s well you know not all, Dan; yes, well, indeed.” Like a lightning flash the whole past was mirrored in her mind. She never would believe him a traitor. Not for one moment. Fort Shelby may have been betrayed and the betrayer shot by his comrade captors, but he was not John Kenashton, nor is that his musket and canteen. They are the only signs of his guilt, and God knows they are not his. His name may have been on that canteen, but it was not his writing, not as I saw him write it. If General Brockaway had been a braver man himself, things would appear different. But of one thing I am sure, John Kenashton fell fighting bravely for what to him was most dear. Thus meditating to herself she passed the evening. [Illustration: Man standing with hand out]