the pipe was at work, and the moment that smoke was seen he kept his eye on
it, until he saw a bright light in front of his nose.

"The first thing will be to find it, Corny. When a patent is signed and
delivered, then you must send forth some proper person to find the land it
covers. I have heard of a gentleman who got a grant of ten thousand acres,
five years since; and though he has had a hunt for it every summer since,
he has not been able to find it yet. To be sure, ten thousand acres is a
small object to look for, in the woods."

"And our fathers intend to find this land as soon as the season opens?"

"Not so fast, Corny; not so fast! That was the scheme of your father's
Welsh blood, but mine takes matters more deliberately. Let us wait until
next year, he said, and then we can send the boys. By that time, too, the
war will take some sort of a shape, and we shall know better how to care
for the children. The subject has been fairly talked over between the two
patentees, and we are to go early _next_ spring, not this."

The idea of land-hunting was not in the least disagreeable to me; nor was
it unpleasant to think that I stood in reversion, or as heir, to twenty
thousand acres of land, in addition to those of Satanstoe. Dirck and I
talked the matter over, as we trotted on, until both of us began to regret
that the expedition was so far in perspective.

The war to which Dirck alluded, had broken out a few months before our
visit to town: a Mr. Washington, of Virginia--the same who has since become
so celebrated as the Col Washington of Braddock's defeat, and other events
at the south--having been captured, with a party of his men, in a small
work thrown up in the neighbourhood of the French, somewhere on the