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“Thank you,” responded the drover, addressing the speaker, a tall, gaunt, iron-featured, weather-beaten figure, with long grey hair, and a rude suit of wolf-skin clothing, cap and moccasins. He held in his long arms a large rifle, a knife in his belt, and a powder horn slung over his side. He seemed the very patriarch of the woods, but good humored, and with his rough hilarity soon explained his presence there.

“Well, stranger,” said he, “you have had a mighty chance of bad luck yer last night, and I never saw them cursed varmints so crazy afore.”

“Do you live in these parts?” inquired the drover.

“Ha! ha! yes, yes,” replied the hunter. “I live yer, I live anywhar’s whar wolf can be found. But you don’t know me, I reckon, stranger?”

“I do not,” said the drover.

“Ha! ha! well, that’s quare, mighty quare. I thought thar warn’t a man this side the blue ridge but what knows me and old kit here, (his rifle.) Well, seeing you are a stranger, I’ll just take that old sarpent’s top-knot off, and have a talk with ye.”

With this introductory of matters, the hunter in the wolf-skins scalped the wolf, and tucking the scalp in his belt, motioned the drover to follow. He led the way in deep silence some half a mile to a small stream, down which they proceeded for some distance, until they came to a low and rudely-constructed cabin. Here the hunter requested the drover to take a seat on a log, in front of the cabin, while he entered through a small aperture in his hut, and brought forth a pipe, tobacco, and some dried meat. These dainties being discussed, old Nimrod the mean time kept chuckling to himself, and mumbling over the idea that there should be a white man or Ingin this side the blue ridge that didn’t know him.

“Ha! ha! well, well, I swar, it is curious, stranger, that you don’t know me, me that kin show more Ingin skelps than any white man that ever trod these war paths; me, who kin shoot more wolves and fetch in more of the varmints’ skelps in one night than any white man or Ingin that ever trod this wilderness. But I’m gittin’ old, very old, forgotten, and here comes a white man clean and straight from the settlements and he don’t know me; I swar I’ve lived to be clean ashamed o’ myself.” And with this soliloquy, half to himself and partly addressed to the drover, the old hunter seemed almost fit to cry, at his imaginary insignificance and dotage.

“But, friend,” said the drover, “as you have not yet informed me by what name I may call you–“

” Call me, stranger? why I am “–and here his eyes glared as he threw himself into a heroic attitude–“Chris Green, old Chris Green, the wolf slayer! But, God bless ye, stranger, p’r’aps you’re from t’other side the ridge, and don’t know old Chris’s history.”

“That I frankly admit,” replied the drover.

“Well, God bless ye, I love my fellow white men, yes, I do, though I live yer by myself, and clothe myself with the varmints’ skins, go but seldom to the settlements, and live on what old kit thar provides me.

“Well, stranger, my history’s a mighty mournful one, but as yer unlucky like myself and plenty of business to ‘tend to ‘fore night, I’ll make my troubles short to ye.

“Well, you see about thirty years ago, I left the blue ridge with a party of my neighbors to come down yer in the Sciota country, to see it, and lay plans to drive the cussed red skins clean out of it. Well, the red skins appeared rather quiet, what few we fell in with, and monstrous civil. But cuss the sarpints, there’s no more dependence to be put in ’em than the cantankerous wolves, and roast ’em, I always sets old kit talkin’ Dutch to them varmints, the moment I claps eyes on ’em. The wolf’s my nat’ral inimy–I’d walk forty miles to git old kit a wolf skelp. Well, we travelled all over the valley, and we gin it as our opinion that the Sciota country was the garden spot o’ the world, and if we could only defend ourselves ‘gainst the inimy we should move right down yer at once. We went back home, and the next spring a hull settlement on us came down yer. My neighbors thought it best for us all to settle down together at Chillicothe, whar a few Ingin huts and cabins war. I had a wife, and son and da’ter; now, stranger, I loved ’em as dearer to me ‘nor life or heart’s blood itself. Well, the red skins soon began to show their pranks–they stole our cre’ters (horses), shot down our cattle, and made all manner o’ trouble for the little settlement. At last I proposed we should build a clever-sized block house, strong and stanch, in which our wimen folks and children, with a few men to guard ’em, could hold out a few days, while a handful o’ us scoured Paint hills and the country about, and peppered a few of the cussed red devils. We had been out some four or five days when we fell in with the inimy; it war just about sunset, and the red skins war camped in a hollow close by this spot. We intended to let ’em get through their smoking and stretch themselves for the night, and then squar our accounts with ’em. Stranger, I’ve lived in these woods thirty years, I never saw such a hurricane as we had yer last night, ‘cept once. The night we lay in ambush for the Ingins, six-and-twenty years ago, thar came up a hurricane, the next mornin’ eleven of the bodies of my neighbors lay crushed along the bottom yer, and for a hundred miles along the Sciota, whar the hurricane passed, the great walnuts and sycamore lay blasted, root and branch, just as straight as ye’d run a bee line; no timber grow’d upon these bottoms since. Five on us escaped the hurricane, but before day we fell in with a large party of red skins, and we fought ’em like devils; three on us fell; myself and the only neighbor left war obliged to fly to the hills. I made my way to the settlement.