"Tell us a story," said Nell to the old frontiersman, as he once
more joined the circle round the fire.
"So, little 'un, ye want a story?" queried Jeff, taking up a live
coal and placing it in the bowl of his pipe. He took off his
coon-skin cap and carefully laid it aside. His weather-beaten face
beamed in answer to the girl's request. He drew a long and audible
pull at his black pipe, and send forth slowly a cloud of white
smoke. Deliberately poking the fire with a stick, as if stirring
into life dead embers of the past, he sucked again at his pipe, and
emitted a great puff of smoke that completely enveloped the grizzled
head. From out that white cloud came his drawling voice.
"Ye've seen thet big curly birch over thar--thet 'un as bends kind
of sorrowful like. Wal, it used to stand straight an' proud. I've
knowed thet tree all the years I've navigated this river, an' it
seems natural like to me thet it now droops dyin', fer it shades the
grave of as young, an' sweet, an' purty a lass as yerself, Miss
Nell. Rivermen called this island George's Island, 'cause Washington
onct camped here; but of late years the name's got changed, an' the
men say suthin' like this: 'We'll try an' make Milly's birch afore
sundown,' jest as Bill and me hev done to-day. Some years agone I
was comin' up from Fort Henry, an' had on board my slow old scow a
lass named Milly--we never learned her other name.
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