"Don't know, sir," answered the lad, "what his reasons be for not coming, any more nor you; but he said to the man as opened the gate for him, 'Is Isaac Younker in the fort?' and the man said, 'Yes;' and then he said to me, 'Run, my little lad, and tell him to come here, and I'll gin you some thing;' and that's all I knows about it."
"Well, I 'spose I'll have to go," rejoined Isaac, rising to his feet; "but I don't think much o' the feller as puts a gentleman to all this here trouble, jest for nothing at all, as one may say, when a feller's in a hurry too. Howsomever," continued he, soliloquizing, as he walked forward in the proper direction, "I 'spect it's some chap as wants to hoax me, or else he's putting on the extras; ef so, I'll fix him, so he won't want to do it agin right immediately, I reckon."
Thus muttering to himself, Isaac drew near the front gate, against which, within the pallisades, the stranger in question was leaning, with his hat pressed down over his forehead, as though he desired concealment. His habiliments, after the fashion of the day, were originally of a superior quality to those generally worn on the frontiers, but soiled and torn in several places, as from the wear and tear of a long, fatiguing journey. His features, what portion of them could be seen under his hat, were pale and haggard, denoting one who had experienced many and severe vicissitudes. As Isaac approached, he raised his eyes from the ground, turned them full upon him, and then, taking a step forward, said, in a voice tremulous with emotion:
"Thank God! Isaac Younker, I am able to behold you once again."
As a distinct view of his features fell upon the curious gaze of the latter, and his voice sounded in his ear, Isaac paused for a moment, as one stupefied with amazement; the next, he staggered back a pace or two, dropped his hands upon his knees, in a stooping posture, as if to peer more closely into the face of the stranger; and then bounding from the earth, he uttered a wild yell of delight, threw his hat upon the ground in a transport of joy, and rushed into the extended arms of Algernon Reynolds, where he wept like a child upon his neck, neither of them able to utter a syllable for something like a minute.
"The Lord be praised!" were the first articulate words of Isaac, in a voice choked with emotion. "God bless you! Mr. Reynolds;" and again the tears of joy fell fast and long. "Is it you?" resumed he, again starting back and gazing wildly upon the other, as if fearful of some mistake. "Yes! yes! it's you—there's no mistaking that thar face—the dead's come to life again, for sartin;" and once more he sprung upon the other's neck, with all the apparent delight of a mother meeting with a lost child.
"Yes, yes, Isaac, thank God! it is myself you really behold—one who never expected to see you again in this world," rejoined Algernon, affected himself to tears, by the noble, heart-touching, affectionate manner of his companion. "But—but Isaac—our friends here—are they—all—all well, Isaac?" This was said in a voice, which, in spite of the speaker's efforts to be calm, trembled from anxiety and apprehension.
"Why," answered Isaac, in a somewhat hesitating manner, "I don't know's thar's any body exactly sick—but—"
"But what, Isaac?" interrupted Algernon, with a start.
"Why, Ella, you know—"