The maiden had not been gone from the path many minutes when the hoof-stroke of a horse rung out with a dull “thud” on the still air of the forest.
A horseman was approaching from the south. A traveler, probably, from Virginia.
Then the horseman came into sight. He was a young man, dressed plainly in a homespun suit of blue. Upon his head he wore a broad-leafed felt hat, that shaded the sun from his eyes. A short, German rifle, carrying a ball of forty to the pound, and richly ornamented on the stock with silver, was resting across his saddle in front of him. A keen-edged hunting-knife, the blade some eighteen inches in length, was thrust through the leather belt that girded in his waist.
The face of the young horseman was a frank and honest one. The full, steel-blue eyes showed plainly both courage and firmness. The handsome, resolute mouth confirmed this.
In figure, the rider was about the medium size, but his well-built, sinewy form gave promise of great muscular power.
The rider was named Harvey Winthrop. A descendant was he of one of the staunch old Puritan fathers. And now he was seeking his fortune in the far Western wilds, for the fickle goddess had not smiled upon the young man. A student at a foreign university, he had been hurriedly called home by the sickness of his father, his only parent. He arrived just in time to close that father’s eyes. And when he came to settle up his parent’s estate, instead of finding himself—as he had expected—the possessor of a goodly fortune, he discovered that some few hundred dollars was all in the world that he could call his own.
Young Harvey Winthrop, though, had the right stuff in his nature. Bidding his friends adieu, he set forth to make new ones, and to carve out for himself a fortune by the banks of the “Beautiful River” the Ohio.
So it is that, on that pleasant summer’s day, the young Bostonian found himself on the trail leading to Point Pleasant, and was fast approaching that station.
“The settlement can not be far off now,” he said, musing to himself as he rode along, and, rising in his stirrups, he strove with his gaze to penetrate through the mazes of the almost trackless forest before him.
Then, to the astonished ears of the young man came a woman’s scream, evidently given under great alarm.