"One room, an' new built; likely 'nough sum settler just com' in yere.

I don't see no movement, ner smoke." "Fled to the nearest fort probably," I replied, able myself by this time to decipher the spot.

"Be too risky to stay out here alone.
We'll look it over; there might be food left behind, even if the people have gone." We must have been half an hour in covering the distance.

There were a number of shallow gullies to cross, and a long, gently sloping hill to climb.

The cabin stood well up above the stream, within the shade of the great oak, and we were confirmed, long before we reached it, of our former judgment that it was uninhabited.