The sun was within about an hour of setting behind the western ridges of the Green Mountains, as a tall, heavily-built man, with strong, sullen face, sat at the door of a log cabin, within a few miles of the settlement of Derryfield, looking across a lonely valley.
The attire of this individual was that of a farmer, and a little patch, of about half an acre, behind his cabin, showed by its ripening corn, that his occupation was not wholly a fiction. Still, a certain air of neglect about cabin and owner, and the presence of a long rifle that lay across his knees, announced that his farming was at least eked out by hunting, if not subordinated thereto.
Although only a few miles from a settlement, the scene around the seated man was completely wild and lonely, so much so that the people had
