"My father and yours were handfast friends, Captain Ireton. More than
that, I've heard my father say he owed yours somewhat on the score of
good turns. I'm master glad I've had a chance to even up a little;
though as for that, we should both thank the Indian." At which he looked
around as one who calls an eye-muster and marks a missing man. "Where is
the chief, Ephraim?"--this to the grizzled hunter who was methodically
reloading his long rifle.
"He's back yonder, gathering in the hair-crop, I reckon. Never you mind
about him, Cap'n. He'll turn up when he smells the meat a-cooking,
immejitly, _if_ not sooner."
Here, as I imagine, I looked all the questions that lacked answers; for
Captain Forney took it in hand to fit them out with explications.
"'Tis Uncanoola, the Catawba," he said; "one of the friendlies. He was
out a-scouting last night and came in an hour before daybreak with the
news that Colonel Tarleton was set upon hanging a spy of ours. From that
to our little ambushment--"
"I see," said I, wanting space to turn the memory leaves. "This Catawba:
is he a man about my age?" Captain Forney laughed. "God He only knows an
Indian's age. But Uncanoola has been a man grown these fifteen years or
more. I can recall his coming to my father's house when I was but a
little cadger."
At that, I remembered, too; remembered a tall, straight young savage,
as handsome as a figure done in bronze, who used sometimes to meet me in
the lonelier forest wilds when I was out a-hunting; remembered how at
first I was afraid of him; how once I would have shot him in a fit of
boyish race antipathy and sudden fright had he not flung away his
firelock and stood before me defenseless.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133