On the Kentucky Frontier

"Why do you try to hold your mother here in the wilderness, Louis Nelson?" he asked suddenly. "Surely a lad like yourself cannot hope to make a clearing unaided, and it is but keeping her in great danger of a cruel death."

"What other can I do?" I asked in surprise, having no inkling as to his true meaning.

"Take her where she will at least be able to lie down at night without fear of being aroused by the gleam of the scalping knife, or the flames of her own dwelling," he replied decidedly.

"All we have in the world is here," my mother said half to herself.

"Then it will not be hard to leave it, for a boy of Louis' age should be able to provide you with as good almost anywhere else."

I looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment, whereupon he said in such a tone as forced one to believe he spoke only the truth:

"We have every reason to believe there will be bloody scenes hereabo