“Shawnee creatures,” said the latter, with edifying coolness;—­“and will think no more of taking the scalps of thee two poor women than of digging off thee own.”

“There are but five of them, and—­” The young man paused, and the gloom that a spirit so long harassed by fears, though fears for another, had spread over his countenance, was exchanged for a look of fierce decision that better became his features.  “Harkee, man,” he abruptly resumed, “we cannot pass the ridge without being seen by them; our horses are exhausted, and we cannot hope to escape them by open flight.”

“Verily,” said Nathan, “thee speaks the truth.”

“Nor can we leave the path we are now pursuing, without fear of falling into the hands of a party more numerous and powerful.  Our only path of escape, you said, was over this ridge, and towards yonder Lower Ford?”

“Truly,” said Nathan, with a lugubrious look of assent,—­“what thee says is true:  but how we are to fly these evil-minded creatures, with poor frightened women hanging to our legs—­”

“We will not fly them!” said Roland, the frown of battle gathering on his brows.  “Yonder crawling reptiles,—­reptiles in spirit as in movement,—­have been dogging our steps for hours, waiting for the moment when to strike with advantage at my defenceless followers; and they will dog us still, if permitted, until there is no escape from their knives and hatchets for either man or woman.  There is a way of stopping them,—­there is a way of requiting them!”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “there is no such way; unless we were wicked men of the world and fighting men, and would wage battle with them!”

“Why not meet the villains in their own way?  There are but five of them,—­and footmen too!  By heavens, man, we will charge them,—­cut them to pieces, and so rid the wood of them!  Four strong men like us, fighting, too, in defence of women,”

“Four!” echoed Nathan, looking wonder and alarm together:  “does thee think to have me do the wicked thing of shedding blood?  Thee should remember, friend, that I am a follower of peaceful doctrines, a man of peace and amity.”

“What!” said Roland, warmly, “would you not defend your life from the villains?  Would you suffer yourself to be tomahawked, unresisting, when a touch of the trigger under your finger, a blow of the knife at your belt, would preserve the existence nature and heaven alike call on you to protect?  Would you lie still, like a fettered ox, to be butchered?”

“Truly,” said Nathan, “I would take myself away; or, if that might not be, why then, friend,—­verily, friend, if I could do nothing else,—­truly, I must then give myself up to be murdered,”

“Spiritless, mad, or hypocritical!” cried Roland, with mingled wonder and contempt.  Then grasping his strange companion by the arm, he cried, “Harkee, man, if you would not strike a blow for yourself,—­would you not strike it for another?  What if you had a wife, a parent, a child, lying beneath the uplifted hatchet, and you with these arms in your hands,—­what! do you tell me you would stand by and see them murdered?—­I say, a wife or child!—­the wife of your bosom,—­the child of your heart? would you see them murdered?”