“Truly,” said Nathan, who listened to these several outpourings of spirit with much complacency, “I am a man of peace and amity, according to my conscience; but if others are men of wrath and battle, according to theirs, I will not take it upon me to censure them,—­nay, not even if they should feel themselves called upon by hard necessity to shed the blood of their Injun fellow-creatures,—­who, it must be confessed, if we should stumble on the same, will do their best to make that necessity as strong as possible.  But now let us away, and see what help there is for us; though whither to go, and what to do, there being Injuns before, and Injuns behind, and Injuns all around, truly, truly, it doth perplex me.”

And so, indeed, it seemed; for Nathan straightway fell into a fit of musing, shaking his head, and tapping his finger contemplatively on the stock of that rifle, terrible only to the animals that furnished him subsistence, and all the while in such apparent abstraction, that he took no notice of a suggestion made by Roland,—­namely, that he should lead the way to the deserted Ford, where, as the soldier said, there was every reason to believe there were no Indians,—­but continued to argue the difficulty in his own mind, interrupting the debate only to ask counsel where there seemed the least probability of obtaining it:—­

“Peter!” said he, addressing himself to the little dog, and that with as much gravity as if addressing himself to a human adviser, “I have my thoughts on the matter,—­what does thee think of matters and things?”

“My friend,” cried Roland, impatiently, “this is no affair to be entrusted to the wisdom of a brute dog!”

“If there is any one here whose wisdom can serve us better,” said Nathan, meekly, “let him speak.  Thee don’t know Peter, friend, or thee would use him with respect.  Many a long day has he followed me through the forest; and many a time has he helped me out of harm and peril from man and beast, when I was at sore shifts to help myself.  For, truly, friend, as I told thee before, the Injuns have no regard for men, whether men of peace or war; and an honest, quiet, peace-loving man can no more roam the wood, hunting for the food that sustains life, without the fear of being murdered, than a fighting-man in search of his prey.—­Thee sees now what little dog Peter is doing?  He runs to the tracks, and he wags his tail;—­truly I am of the same way of thinking!”

“What tracks are they?” demanded Roland, as he followed Nathan to the path which the latter had been pursuing, when arrested by the soldier, and where the little cur was now smelling about, occasionally lifting his head and wagging his tail, as if to call his master’s attention.

“What tracks!” echoed Nathan, looking on the youth first with wonder, and then with commiseration, and adding,—­“It was a tempting of Providence, friend, for thee to lead poor helpless women into a wild forest.  Does thee not know the tracks of thee own horses?”