His glance slowly wandered from the candle flame, until it settled gravely upon my face as I sat resting on a rude bench fitted into the chimney corner.

He looked so intently at me that my mother seemed instantly to interpret his thought.
"Oh, surely not that, David ?" she exclaimed, pleadingly.

"Not John ?" "I know of no other fit messenger, little woman," he answered soberly.
"It has indeed troubled me far more than all the rest, to decide on this; yet there is no one else whom I think equal to the task.

John is a good boy, mother, and has sufficient experience in woodcraft to make the journey." "But the savages!" she insisted.

"'T is said we are upon the verge of a fresh outbreak, stirred up by this new war with England, that may involve the settlements at any time.