CAPTAIN DOWNING SMILES.

The hot Arkansas sun shone hotly down upon Dead-Man’sForest, that vast, sleepy army of trees which silently overlookedacres of treacherous swamp, silent glade, and tiny hillock.Why it had been so weirdly named, no one knew, asthe name had descended from the Indians, and they had regardedit with awe as being haunted with evil spirits.

In extent it was some thousands of acres, some hilly, otherslevel, and a great portion swampy and gloomy. The treeswere thickly planted, and were giants among other trees.

In the swampy regions the sun scarcely ever penetrated thematted branches, and the howl of the wolf, the scream of thecatamount, and the hiss of the venomous snake, and the screamof some bird of prey were the only sounds to be heard in itsdepths.

On the afternoon of which we are speaking, however, thegloomy old forest resounded with the quaint tones of a negromelody, trolled from the lips of one of the most sable negroeswho ever hunted a raccoon.

He was shambling along a dim trail through the silent forest,idly gazing right and left, and appeared to be wholly athis leisure.

He was short and stumpy, and was scantily dressed in anold cotton shirt open at the neck, and an old pair of blue jeanpants, which were much too short for him, being once theproperty of a diminutive boy.

His lips were thick and huge, and his large white eyesrolled always, never at rest. His head was bare, showing acranium covered with close-setting kinks of black hair, orwool. He was very dirty, and was one of those heedless,happy vagabonds who have plenty to eat, plenty of time tosleep, and who care not what the morrow may bring.

His name was Cato, the Creeper—from his aptness andstealthiness in pursuing a trail. He once had been a Mississippislave, but had been freed many years since—in factwhen he was quite young, and he was now thirty-five. Helived alone, and what he did for a living no one knew; buthe always was to be found strolling about Dead-Man’s Forest,or else asleep in his cabin, which stood on the edge of thewood. He was suspected of being in league with a band ofoutlaws which haunted the woods, but, as nothing bad wasever proven against him, he was allowed to go unmolested.

Cato emerged into a flowery glade, with a skip and a caper.

“Hi!” he laughed, cheerily. “Ho! wha’ for dat Dutchmansay song war—hi!”

He stopped, and bending his head, mused for a moment.Then he capered on, with a grin.

“Hi! yah! yah! Golly, I hab it!