CHAPTER IV.
THE LOST HOME AND A FOUND FRIEND.
It was on the morning of the day which we have just seen close. As will be remembered the air was clear and the day one of the most beautiful and pleasant of the year. The air was perfectly still, and had that peculiar, bracing sharpness, which is only felt when it is in a perfect state of rest. It was such a morning as would make every healthy person feel that to merely live was pleasure.
That part of the State of New York in which the first scenes of this life drama are laid, was a country at this time cut up and diversified by numerous streams—the greater number of comparatively small size, but a few of considerable magnitude. Skirting and between these were thousands of acres of thick luxuriant forest, while in some places were plains of great extent entirely devoid of timber.
It was about the middle of the day referred to, that a single horseman was slowly skirting one of these open patches of country, a few miles distant from Haverland's home. A mere glance would have shown that he had come a great distance, and both he and the animal he bestrode were jaded and well-nigh worn out. He was a young man, some twenty or twenty-five years of age, attired in the costume of a hunter; and, although fatigued with his long ride, the watchfulness of his motions would have shown any one that he was no stranger to frontier life. He was rather prepossessing in appearance—had fine dark eyes, curly hair and whiskers, an expressive Roman nose, and small and finely formed mouth. In front, a long polished rifle rested across the saddle ready for use at a second's warning. His horse's sides were steaming and foamy, and the animal made his way along with painfully evident weariness.
As the day waned, the traveler looked about him with more interest and eagerness. He carefully examined the streams he
