With the battle at the Black-Vulture's town, the interest of our history ceases; and there it may be said to have its end.

The deliverance of the cousins, the one from captivity and death, the other from a fate to her more dreadful than death; the restoration of the will of their uncle; and the fall of the daring and unprincipled villain to whose machinations they owed all their calamities, had changed the current of their fortunes, which was now to flow in a channel where the eye could no longer trace obstructions.

The last peal of thunder had dissipated the clouds of adversity, and the star of their destiny shone out with all its original lustre.

The future was no longer one of mere hope; it presented all the certainty of happiness of which human existence is capable.
Such being the case, it would be a superfluous and unprofitable task to pursue our history further, were it not that other individuals, whose interests were so long intermingled with those of the cousins, have a claim upon our notice.

And first, before speaking of the most important of all, the warlike man of peace, the man-slaying hater of blood, the redoubtable Nathan Slaughter, let us bestow a word upon honest Pardon Dodge, whose sudden re-appearance on the stage of life so greatly astonished the young Virginian.
This resuscitation, however, as explained by Dodge himself, was, after all, no such wonderful matter.