"I heard your gun.

I've made a fire yonder beneath a black gum.

Adam Gaudylock, I am well-nigh a man!" "So you be, so you be," answered the other; "well-nigh a man." The boy beat the air with a branch of sumach.

"I want to be a man! But I don't want to be a tobacco-roller like my father, nor--" "Nor a hunter like me," the other finished placidly.

"Be the Governor of Virginia, then, or come with me and make yourself King of the Mississippi! I've watched you, boy! You're growing up ambitious, ambitious as What's-his-name--him that you read of ?" "Lucifer," answered the boy--"ambitious as Lucifer." "Well, don't spill the water, my kingling," said the hunter good-naturedly.