Butter and salt were packed in a tin pail by Mrs. Porter and carried by Hafed, while Starr brought a basket with plates and knives. The corn was to be plucked from a cornfield which they would pass on their way. The spot chosen was at some distance from the house, up in the woods, where a pure, bright spring bubbled up from the rocks, and then went rippling and singing away in one of those hundred mountain streams. Here was a little cleared space among the trees, and a broad flat stone on which the fire was to be built; while two or three great trunks and stumps formed excellent seats,--excellent, that is to say, for those people who had both their limbs left to them,--but the Colonel did not find them quite so comfortable; so Starr slung a camp chair over his arm to have it ready for his master's use when he should come.