“Lord, captain Willoughby, I was altogether dumbfounded, when the truth came upon me of a sudden!  I never should have known the major in that dress, in the world, or out of the world either; but he walks so like the captain, that as I followed a’ter him, I said to myself, who can it be?—­and then the walk came over me, as it might be; and then I remembered last night, and the stranger that was out with the captain, and how he occupied the room next to the library, and them things; and so, when I come to look in his face, there was the major sure enough!”

Joel lied famously in this account; but he believed himself safe, as no one could very well contradict him.

“Now, you have explained the manner in which you recognised my son, Strides,” added the captain, “I will thank you to let me know what has become of him?”

“He’s with the savages.  Having come so far to seize the father, it wasn’t in natur’ to let the son go free, when he walked right into the lion’s den, like.”

“And how could the savages know he was my son?  Did they, too, recognise the family walk?”

Strides was taken aback at this question, and he even had the grace to colour a little.  He saw that he was critically placed; for, in addition to the suggestions of conscience, he understood the captain sufficiently to know he was a man who would not trifle, in the event of his suspicions becoming active.  He knew he deserved the gallows, and Joyce was a man who would execute him in an instant, did his commander order it.  The idea fairly made the traitor tremble in his shoes.

“Ah!  I’ve got a little ahead of my story,” he said, hastily.  “But, perhaps I had best tell everything as it happened—­”

“That will be the simplest and clearest course.  In order that there be no interruption, we will go into my room, where Joyce will follow us, as soon as he has dismissed his men.”

This was done, and in a minute or two the captain and Joel were seated in the library, Joyce respectfully standing; the old soldier always declining to assume any familiarity with his superior.  We shall give the substance of most of Joel’s report in our own language; preferring it, defective as it is, to that of the overseer’s, which was no bad representative of his cunning, treacherous and low mind.

It seems, then, that the bearers of the flag were amicably received by the Indians.  The men towards whom they were led on the rocks, were the chiefs of the party, who treated them with proper respect.  The sudden movement was explained to them, as connected with their meal; and the chiefs, accompanied by the major and Strides, proceeded to the house of the miller.  Here, by means of a white man for an interpreter, the major had demanded the motive of the strangers in coming into the settlement.  The answer was a frank demand for the surrender of the Hut, and all it contained, to the authorities of the continental