OR, THE RESCUE. A TALE OF THE GREAT KANAWIA. "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will." SHAKSPEARE, NEW YORK: BUNCE & BROTHER, PUBLISHERS, 126 NASSAU STREET. MDCCCLV. AL 4305130 HARVARD COLLEGE JUN 25 1917 LIBRARY Hayes of und ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by BUNCE & BROTHER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 'W. H. TINSON, Stereotyper.-TAWS, RUSSELL & Co., Printers.-G. W. ALEXANDER, Binder. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. THIS able and highly interesting story, which, it is admitted, is one of the most spirited and graphic pictures of Western Life this country has yet produced, originally appeared under the name of Young Kate," when it attained at once a flattering success. For some years it has been out of print, and its present appearance, under a more appropriate title, is in response to numerous demands for its republication. Those who read it upon its first appearance will gladly welcome its revival, while to all others its sparkling and brilliant pages will afford pleasure and delight. NEW YORK, July, 1855. NEW HOPE. CHAPTER I. ON a fine day in October, 1798, a young gentleman and lady were standing near that remarkable canal worn down by the action of the swiftly-rushing water of the falls of the Great Kanawha. The weather had been dry; the river was low, and much of the rock-covered bottom, which is usually under water, was now exposed, and afforded a pleasant and interesting promenade. They had been examining those singularly smooth, regular cavities in the rock which are called pot-holes. In some of these were fishes, which the receding waters had left imprisoned. In all of them was the instrument of their formation-a stone, which, whirled around by the current in some indentation of the rock, had, by its attrition, worn a deep hole, and had itself become a smooth and polished pebble. While they were gazing on the clear, deep blue water, which, with arrowy swiftness, was darting through the chasm on the edge of which they stood, the sharp report of a rifle quite near made Matilda Ballenger start. They looked up, and her brother, William Henry Ballenger, saw the smoke of the gun curling above the high and craggy cliff that overhangs the narrow valley at the falls, and wafted away in fantastic wreath by the gentle wind. The body of some animal, which, for a moment, seemed suspended in the air, tumbled down the side of the mountain, and, after a spasmodic struggle of momentary duration, lay motionless on the ground. |