“Then you are a rebel?”

“Lord!” he said, laughing, “how you twist our English tongue!  ’Tis his Majesty across the waters who rebels at our home-made Congress.”

“Is it not dangerous to confess such things to a stranger?” I asked, smiling.

His bright eyes reassured me.  “Not to all strangers,” he drawled, swinging his free foot over his horse’s neck and settling his bulk on the saddle.  One big hand fell, as by accident, over the pan of his long rifle.  Watching, without seeming to, I saw his forefinger touch the priming, stealthily, and find it dry.

“You are no King’s man,” he said, calmly.

“Oh, do you take me for a rebel, too?” I demanded.

“No, sir; you are neither the one nor the other—­like a tadpole with legs, neither frog nor pollywog.  But you will be.”

“Which?” I asked, laughing.

“My wisdom cannot draw that veil for you, sir,” he said.  “You may take your chameleon color from your friends the Varicks and remain gray, or from the Butlers and turn red, or from the Schuylers and turn blue and buff.”

“You credit me with little strength of character,” I said.

“I credit you with some twenty-odd years and no experience.”

“With nothing more?”

“Yes, sir; with sincerity and a Spanish rifle—­which you may have need of ere this month of May has melted into June.”

I glanced at the beautiful Spanish weapon resting across my pommel.

“What do you know of the Varicks?” I asked, smiling.

“More than do you,” he said, “for all that they are your kin.  Look at me, sir!  Like myself, you wear deer-skin from throat to ankle, and your nose is ever sniffing to windward.  But this is a strange wind to you.  You see, you smell, but your eyes ask, ‘What is it?’ You are a woodsman, but a stranger among your own kin.  You have never seen a living Varick; you have never even seen a partridge.”

“Your wisdom is at fault there,” I said, maliciously.

“Have you seen a Varick?”

“No; but the partridge—­”

“Pooh! a little creature, like a gray meadow-lark remoulded!  You call it partridge, I call it quail.  But I speak of the crested thunder—­drumming cock that struts all ruffed like a Spanish grandee of ancient times.  Wait, sir!” and he pointed to a string of birds’ footprints in the dust just ahead.  “Tell me what manner of creature left its mark there?”

I leaned from my saddle, scanning the sign carefully, but the bird that made it was a strange bird to me.  Still bending from my saddle, I heard his mocking laugh, but did not look up.

“You wear a lynx-skin for a saddle-cloth,” he said, “yet that lynx never squalled within a thousand miles of these hills.”

“Do you mean to say there are no lynxes here?” I asked.

“Plenty, sir, but their ears bear no black-and-white marks.  Pardon, I do not mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; it is my habit.”