He left me without making any reply, and I entered the cabin, the door of which was standing ajar.  I found, seated near the fire on a rude bench, a female, perhaps thirty years old, whose countenance wore a look of deep dejection, but at the same time betrayed strong evidence of having been once quite attractive.  A little girl sat in her lap—­two boys of the ages of perhaps seven and eleven occupied a bench at her right—­an infant of, I should think, three months old, slept in the cradle, which a little girl apparently about five years old stood rocking.  The group was a very imposing one.  As I entered, I gave a tap upon the door, which caused the mother to turn towards me; but she did not speak, waiting, it would seem, for me to introduce my business.  I apologized for my unceremonious entrance, saying, that I had learned she was formerly a resident in the states; and that I being also from thence, felt some interest in her and her family.  She beckoned me to a seat, and after some time, told me she was born in Philadelphia, but that, having married a Kentuckian, she moved there, and lived some eight or nine years in that state—­that her husband, at the expiration of that time, had taken his family to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they resided one year, and that from thence they had come to the place where I found them.

Here there was a pause; in fact, I discovered that the poor woman’s voice faltered the moment she approached the subject of her arrival at her present residence.  The silence was broken by the child, who stood rocking the cradle, and who said, “This is a bad place, ain’t it, Ma?  Here the bad men live that killed Pa.”  At this the mother burst into tears.  As she did so, she kindly told the child to hush.

After the mother’s tears had partially subsided, I told her to talk to me without restraint; that I had visited the settlement on the other side of the river on government business, which I expected to transact, and leave in a very few days.  I here was guilty of falsehood.  I had not visited the settlement for government, of course, but to pursue my iniquitous course of gambling with the refugees.

The woman implored me to be watchful; that I was in the midst of the most abandoned description of men that could possibly be conceived of; and that they would make a victim of me the more readily, on account of my extreme youth.  I told her that they could want nothing of me, for the simple reason that I had nothing valuable about me.  She assured me that it was not always avarice which tempted these men to deeds of blood.  They had butchered her poor husband in the very house where we were, within hearing of herself and children, and when all were imploring that his life might be spared.  And yet money was not the temptation.  She then gave me a history of the cruel murder of her husband, which was as follows:—­