“I will do so, if you promise to make no hue and cry.”

“What should I want of tramping after Indians in the dark, and perhaps catch an arrow in my paunch for my pains?” groaned the jailer; “though I have some notions of my own about the Indian part of the business.”

“Trusting thy promise, I will relieve thee from thy bonds,” said the lady, cutting the cords.

“I made no promise,” said Bars, as soon as he was set at liberty, “though I will behave as if I had.  These be brave Indians,” he said to himself, slyly taking up the gold, “and pay handsomely for their right to be considered such.  An’ it be thy pleasure that it should be so,” he added aloud, “these golden Indians shall remain Indians till the day of judgment, for all Bars—­”

Dame Bars, now, from her nook, made her appearance on the scene.

“O, Sam!” she exclaimed, “be they gone, and have not they scalped you?”

“You can look for yourself, wife,” answered Sam, passing his fingers through his shock of hair, as if to satisfy any doubts of his own.  “But what should they want with my scalp, I wonder.”

“I am sure I can’t tell what they do with such things,” said the dame, “unless to cover their own heads when they get bald.”

“A pretty figure,” grunted Bars, “my red crop would make on the top of one of them salvages.  It never will come to that, goody.  But I must not stay here talking about scalps, when, perhaps, the poor sentinel may have lost his.”  And he started toward the door.

“O do not go, do not go, Sam!” said his wife, throwing her arms around him; “they may be watching for thee on the outside.”

“Women be always cowards,” said the jailer; “but thou need not hug me so tight now.  I warrant, having got what they wanted, they are in the woods before this time.”

“Yet stay a little longer,” persisted his wife.  “If the poor soldier be murdered, thou canst do him no good.”

“You forget, goody, that I am a public officer, and must do my duty,” said Sam, extricating himself from her grasp; and, lighting a lantern, he went out of doors.

Bars directed his course straight to the door of the prison, which he found open.

“It is as I expected,” he thought, “There is no use in going in.  The Indian’s long legs are loping far away in the forest, be sure.  Cowlson! friend Cowlson!” he asked, “art thou dead, or only scalped?”

He listened for an answer, but none was returned.  Proceeding round the little building, he soon found what he sought—­the soldier, tied by the neck and heels, in a most uncomfortable posture, and soaked with the rain.

“Humph!” ejaculated Bars; “these salvages be learning civilization fast.  An’ I had done it myself, I could not have tied the knot with more judgment.”

The soldier (to add to whose misfortunes, his musket was gone, together with the powder and ball wherewith he had been furnished) felt in no talking humor, and sulkily followed the jailer into the house, where he recovered his speech, and recounted his portion of the adventures of the night.  Bars pretended to believe that the party consisted entirely of Indians; of which, however, Cowlson could by no means be persuaded; “for how,” asked he, “could they learn our countersign?”