“Well! there’s all the difference between being an honest feller and a rascal!” muttered Atkinson, casting his eyes upon the fire, which he fell to studying for a moment with great earnestness.  Then starting up hastily, and turning to the prisoner he exclaimed—­

“There’s not a better gal in the etarnal world!  You don’t know it, captain; but that Telie, that poor critter that’s afeard of her own shadow, did run all risks, and play all manner of fool’s tricks, to save you from this identical same captivation; and the night you was sleeping at Bruce’s fort, and we waiting for you at the ford, she cried, and begged, and prayed that I would do you no more mischief; and, cuss her, she threatened to tell you and Bruce, there, the whole affair of the ambush; till I scared her with my tomahawk, like a d——­d rascal as I am (but there’s nothing will fetch her round but fear of murdering); and so swore her to keep silence.  And then, captain, her running away after you in the woods,—­why, it was jist to circumvent us,—­to lead you to the t’other old road, and so save you; it was, captain, and she owned it:  and if you’d a’ taken to her leading, as she axed you, she’d ‘a’ got you out of the snarl altogether.  Howsomever, captain,” he continued, after making those admissions, which solved all the enigmas of Telie’s conduct, “I won’t lie in this matter no-how.  The gal is no gal of the major’s, but my own flesh and blood:  the major’s little critter sickened on the border, and died off in less than a year; and so there was all our rascally burning and lying for nothing; for, if we had waited a while, the poor thing would have died of her own accord.  Well, captain, I’m making a long story about nothing:  but the short of it is, I didn’t make a bit of a fortun’ at all, but fell into troubles; and the end was, I turned Injun, jist as you see me; and a feller there, Tom Bruce, took to my little gal out of charity; and so she was bred up a beggar’s brat, with everybody a jeering of her, because of her d——­d rascally father.  And, you see, this made a wolf of me; for I couldn’t bring her among the Injuns, to marry her to a cussed niggur of a savage,—­no, captain, I couldn’t; for she’s my own natteral flesh and blood, and, captain, I love her!  And so I goes back to Virginny, to see what Braxley could do for her; and there, d——­n him, he puts me up to a new rascality; which was nothing less than setting up my gal for the major’s daughter, and making her a great heiress, and marrying of her.  Howsomever, this wouldn’t do, this marrying; for, first, Dick Braxley was a bigger rascal than myself, and it was agin my conscience to give him the gal, who was a good gal, deserving of an honest husband; and, next the feller was mad after young madam, and there was no telling how soon he might p’ison my gal, to marry the other.  And so we couldn’t fix the thing then to our liking, no way; but by and by we did.  For when the major died, he sends for me in a way I told him of; and here’s jist the whole of our rascality.  We was, in the first place, jist to kill you off—­”