with Indian leggings, and moccasons, and a tomahawk in the broad wampum belt round his waist.  As Dolph caught a distinct view of his person and features, he was struck with something that reminded him of the old man of the haunted house.  The man before him, however, was different in his dress and age; he was more cheery, too, in his aspect, and it was hard to define where the vague resemblance lay—­but a resemblance there certainly was.  Dolph felt some degree of awe in approaching him; but was assured by the frank, hearty welcome with which he was received.  As he case his eyes about, too, he was still further encouraged, by perceiving that the dead body, which had caused him some alarm, was that of a deer; and his satisfaction was complete, in discerning, by the savoury steams which issued from a kettle suspended by a hooked stick over the fire, that there was a part cooking for the evening’s repast.

He now found that he had fallen in with a rambling hunting party, such as often took place in those days among the settlers along the river.  The hunter is always hospitable; and nothing makes men more social and unceremonious, than meeting in the wilderness.  The commander of the party poured him out a dram of cheering liquor, which he gave him with a merry leer, to warm his heart; arid ordered one of his followers to fetch some garments from a pinnace, which was moored in a cove close by, while those in which our hero was dripping might be dried before the fire.

Dolph found, as he had suspected, that the shot from the glen, which had come so near giving him his quietus when on the precipice, was from the party before him.  He had nearly crushed one of them by the fragment of rock which he had detached; and the jovial old hunter, in the broad hat and buck-tail, had fired at the place where he saw the bushes move, supposing it to be some wild animal.  He laughed heartily at the blunder; it being what is considered an exceeding good joke among hunters; “but faith, my lad,” said he, “if I had but caught a glimpse of you to take sight at, you would have followed the rock.  Antony Vander Heyden is seldom known to miss his aim.”  These last words were at once a clue to Dolph’s curiosity; and a few questions let him completely into the character of the man before him, and of his band of woodland rangers.  The commander in the broad hat and hunting-frock, was no less a personage than the Heer Antony Vander Heyden, of Albany, of whom Dolph had many a time heard.  He was, in fact, the hero of many a story; being a man of singular humours and whimsical habits, that were matters of wonder to his quiet Dutch neighbours.  As he was a man of property, having had a father before him, from whom he inherited large tracts of wild land, and whole barrels full of wampum, he could indulge his humours without control.  Instead of staying quietly at home, eating and drinking at regular meal times; amusing himself by smoking his pipe on the bench before the door, and then turning into a comfortable bed at night; he delighted in all kinds of rough, wild expeditions.  He was never so happy as when on a hunting party in the wilderness, sleeping under trees or bark sheds, or cruising down the river, or on some woodland lake, fishing and hunting, and living the Lord knows how.