“Proceed.”

“How much of him?” continued Nick, taking up another twig; “much as he want—­want little, got him—­want more, got him.  Want none at all, got none at all—­got what he want.”

“Go on.”

“To be sure.  How came to own him?—­How a pale face come to own America? Discover him—­ha!—­Well, Nick discover land down yonder, up dere, over here.”

“Nick, what the devil do you mean by all this?”

“No mean devil, at all—­mean land—­good land. Discover him—­know where he is—­catch beaver dere, three, two year.  All Nick say, true as word of honour; much more too.”

“Do you mean it is an old beaver-dam destroyed?” asked the captain, pricking up his ears; for he was too familiar with the woods, not to understand the value of such a thing.

“No destroy—­stand up yet—­good as ever.—­Nick dere, last season.”

“Why, then, do you tell of it?  Are not the beaver of more value to you, than any price you may receive for the land?”

“Cotch him all, four, two year ago—­rest run away.  No find beaver to stay long, when Indian once know, two time, where to set he trap.  Beaver cunninger ’an pale face—­cunning as bear.”

“I begin to comprehend you, Nick.  How large do you suppose this pond to be?”

“He ’m not as big as Lake Ontario.  S’pose him smaller, what den?  Big enough for farm.”

“Does it cover one or two hundred acres, think you?—­Is it as large as the clearing around the fort?”

“Big as two, six, four of him.  Take forty skin, dere one season.  Little lake; all ’e tree gone.”

“And the land around it—­is it mountainous and rough, or will it be good for corn?”

“All sugar-bush—­what you want better?  S’pose you want corn; plant him.  S’pose you want sugar; make him.”

Captain Willoughby was struck with this description, and he returned to the subject, again and again.  At length, after extracting all the information he could get from Nick, he struck a bargain with the fellow.  A surveyor was engaged, and he started for the place, under the guidance of the Tuscarora.  The result showed that Nick had not exaggerated.  The pond was found, as he had described it to be, covering at least four hundred acres of low bottom-land; while near three thousand acres of higher river-flat, covered with beach and maple, spread around it for a considerable distance.  The adjacent mountains too, were arable, though bold, and promised, in time, to become a fertile and manageable district.  Calculating his distances with judgment, the surveyor laid out his metes and bounds in such a manner as to include the pond, all the low-land, and about three thousand acres of hill, or mountain, making the materials for a very pretty little “patent” of somewhat more than six thousand acres of capital land.  He then collected a few chiefs of the nearest tribe, dealt out his rum, tobacco, blankets, wampum, and gunpowder, got twelve