mounted on a dapple-gray horse of wonderful bone and sinew, though quite low in flesh from campaigning, and his housings were as splendid as his dress and arms. The latter, saber, pistols, and light carbine, were all silver inlaid, and of exquisite finish.

[Pg 14]

To a hidden observer, the sight of this gay cavalier, alone in the wilds of Vermont, would have suggested great wonder. How came he there, and what was he doing? In those early days of the Revolutionary struggle, rags and bare feet were the rule, brilliant uniforms the few exceptions. There was no corps of hussars in the Continental service, and the Hessians, on the English side, wore green, not pale blue. Besides, the uniform of the hussar officer was distinctively Prussian, the black eagle being worked on his horse’s housings.

Whatever he was, he seemed to be quite at home in the woods, for his blue eye was calm and fearless, and the long fair mustache that drooped over his chin covered as resolute a mouth as ever closed firmly over shut teeth.

Having allowed his beast to drink, the young cavalier urged him through the water to the other side, and trotted briskly up the lonely road between the arches of the wood, till he had stopped opposite the ridge, and beheld before him another valley and more hills.

The ridge on which he stood happened to command an extensive view; reining up, he scanned it with a practiced eye.

“By heavens!” he exclaimed to himself, in a low tone, after a long and searching look; “there is some one living on the haunted hill, where even the Indians would not dare to go. I must investigate that.”

[Pg 15]

[Pg 15]

So saying, he shook his rein, and galloped down the hillside, in the direction of a mountain, the largest of any in sight, from the side of which a thin column of smoke curled up in the air.

Nothing very strange in that it may be said; but the young officer knew better.

He was passing through a country in which there was no settlements in the path he was riding, till he came to Derry field. The mountain before him was well-known by the name of “Haunted Hill” to the whites, and had the reputation of being haunted by a demon, who frightened away all the Indians who ventured near it. This was well 

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