BATTLE AT GREAT MEADOWS
Chapter XXVIII

THE FALL OF THE TRADING-POSTChapter I
THE HOMESTEAD IN THE CLEARING

“Uncle Joe, an Indian is coming this way, down the Creek trail.”
“An Indian, Dave! Can you make out who it is?”
“Not yet. He’s in the shadow of the hemlocks.” The youth pointed along the brushwood bordering the watercourse. “There! do you see him?”
“I do. He is trailing a gun, too, and wears white feathers. It must be White Buffalo.”
“White Buffalo! Oh, Uncle Joe, do you think he’d be able to get back so soon?--over the mountains and rivers, and all?”
“These redskins can travel swift enough when they want to, Dave, and like as not your father told him to bring the word back as quick as he could.” Joseph Morris continued to keep his eyes fixed on the trail, which wound in and out under the low-drooping trees. “Yes, it’s White Buffalo, and he’s coming straight for our cabin.”
“I hope he brings good news,” went on Dave Morris. “Shall I go and tell Aunt Lucy? More than likely he’ll want something to eat--they all do when they come here.”
“Yes, tell her to fix up a good supper for the redskin, and tell her, too, to get that new dress goods I bought at Winchester last week out of the way. If she doesn’t White Buffalo will surely want some of it for himself or his squaw--he can’t hold back on bright colors--although he’s not half so much of a beggar as some of them.”
“I will. But, Uncle Joe, you’ll bring him right up to the cabin, won’t you? I’m so impatient to hear from father.”
“Yes, I’ll bring him right up.”
“It seems an age since father went away,” added Dave Morris.

With these words the boy turned away from the bank of the creek and, axe in hand--for he had been helping his uncle cut down some scrub timber on the edge of a small clearing--moved quickly through a patch of corn and then into a belt of timberland composed of beautiful walnut, hickory, and mountain ash. Beyond the belt was a second clearing, long and narrow, spread out upon both banks of a brook flowing into the creek previously mentioned. In the midst of this was a rude but comfortable log cabin, long, low, and narrow, the eaves at one end coming down in a porch-like roof to shelter the kitchen door. There were four rooms in this home in the wilderness and all upon the ground floor, the upper floor under the roof tree being little more than a loft in which to store certain winter supplies.

David Morris was a youth of fourteen, tall, 

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