“Halloa, there!” shouted Captain Spinnet, as the luckless pirates crowded around the lee gangway of their prize, “when you find them silver dollars, just let us know, will you?”

Half a dozen pistol shots was all the answer the old man got, but they did him no harm; and, crowding up all sail, he made for the vessel he had discovered, which lay dead to leeward of him, and which he made out to be a large ship.  The clipper cut through the water like a dolphin, and, in a remarkably short space of time, Spinnet luffed up under the ship’s stern, and explained all that had happened.  The ship proved to be an East Indiaman, bound for Charleston, having, all told, thirty men on board, twenty of whom at once jumped into the clipper and offered their services in helping to take the pirate.

Before dark, Captain Spinnet was once more within hailing distance of his own vessel, and raising a trumpet to his mouth, he shouted: 

“Schooner ahoy!  Will you quietly surrender yourselves prisoners, if we come on board!”

“Come and try it!” returned the pirate captain, as he brandished his cutlass above his head in a threatening manner, which seemed to indicate that he would fight to the last.

But that was his last moment, for Seth was crouched below the bulwarks, taking deliberate aim along the barrel of a heavy rifle, and, as the bloody villain was in the act of turning to his men, the sharp crack of Seth Spinnet’s weapon rang its fatal death-peal, and the next moment the captain fell back into the arms of his men, with a brace of bullets in his heart.

“Now,” shouted the old man, as he leveled the long pivot gun, and seized a lighted match, “I’ll give you just five minutes to make your minds up in, and, if you don’t surrender, I’ll blow every one of you into the other world.”

The death of their captain, and, withal the sight of the pivot gun—­its peculiar properties they knew full well—­brought the pirates to their senses, and they threw down their weapons, and agreed to give themselves up.

In two days from that time, Captain Spinnet delivered his cargo safely in Havana, gave the pirates into the hands of the civil authorities, and delivered the clipper up to the government, in return for which, he received a sum of money sufficient for an independence during the remainder of his life, as well as a very handsome medal from the government.

KENTON THE SPY.

A secret expedition had been planned by Col.  Bowman, of Kentucky, against an Indian town on the little Miama.  Simon Kenton and two young men, named Clark and Montgomery, were employed to proceed in advance, and reconnoiter.  Kenton was a native of Fauquier county, Virginia, where he was born the fifteenth of May, 1755; his companions were roving backwoodsmen, denizens of the wood, and hunters like himself.

These adventurers set out in obedience to their orders, and reached the neighborhood of the Indian village without being discovered.  They examined it attentively, and walked around the cabins during the night with perfect impunity.  Had they returned after reconnoitering the place, they would have accomplished the object of their mission, and avoided a heavy calamity.  They fell martyrs, however to their passion for horseflesh.