“You know me, Nick,” he said sternly, “and ought to dread my displeasure.”

“What cap’in mean, now?” demanded the Indian, quietly.

“That the same whip is in this fort that I always kept in the other, in which you knew me to dwell; nor have I forgotten how to use it.”

The Tuscarora gazed at the captain with a very puzzling expression, though, in the main, his countenance appeared to be ironical rather than fierce.

“What for, talk of whip, now?” he said.  “Even Yengeese gen’ral hide whip, when he see enemy.  Soldier can’t fight when back sore.  When battle near, den all good friend; when battle over, den flog, flog, flog.  Why talk so?—­Cap’in nebber strike Wyandotte.”

“Your memory must be short, to say this!  I thought an Indian kept a better record of what passed.”

“No man dare strike Wyandotte!” exclaimed the Indian, with energy.  “No man—­pale-face or red-skin, can give blow on back of Wyandotte, and see sun set!”

“Well—­well—­Nick; we will not dispute on this point, but let bye-gones be bye-gones.  What has happened, has happened, and I hope will never occur again.”

“Dat happen to Nick—­Sassy Nick—­poor, drunken Nick—­to Wyandotte, nebber!”

“I believe I begin to understand you, now, Tuscarora, and am glad I have a chief and a warrior in my house, instead of a poor miserable outcast.  Shall I have the pleasure of filling you a glass in honour of our old campaigns?”

“Nick alway dry—­Wyandotte know no thirst.  Nick, beggar—­ask for rum—­pray for rum—­t’ink of rum, talk of rum, laugh for rum, cry for rum.  Wyandotte don’t know rum, when he see him.  Wyandotte beg not’in’; no, not his scalp.”

“All this sounds well, and I am both willing and glad, chief, to receive you in the character in which you give me to understand you have now come.  A warrior of Wyandotte’s high name is too proud to carry a forked tongue in his mouth, and I shall hear nothing but truth.  Tell me, then, all you know about this party at the mill; what has brought it here, how you came to meet my son, and what will be the next step of his captors.  Answer the questions in the order in which I put them.”

“Wyandotte not newspaper to tell ebbery t’ing at once.  Let cap’in talk like one chief speaking to anoder.”

“Then, tell me first, what you know of this party at the mill.  Are there many pale-faces in it?”

“Put ’em in the river,” answered the Indian, sententiously; “water tell the trut’.”

“You think that there are many among them that would wash white?”

“Wyandotte know so.  When did red warriors ever travel on their path like hogs in drove? One red-man there, as Great Spirit make him; by his side two red-men as paint make ’em.  This soon told on trail.”

“You struck their trail, then, and joined their company, in that manner?”