Dick was upon his feet, lugging out the great broadsword.

“Show us the way, Eph Yeates!” he burst out impatiently.  “We are wasting a deal of precious time!”

But the old man only puffed the more placidly at his pipe, making no move to head a sortie.

“Fair and easy, Cap’n Dick; fair and easy.  There ain’t no manner o’ hurry, ez I allow.  Whenst I’ve got to tussle with a wheen o’ full redskins, and me with my stummick growed fast to my backbone, I jest ez soon wait till them same redskins are asleep.  Bime-by they’ll settle down for the night, and then we’ll go up yonder and pizen ’em immejitly, if not sooner.  But there ain’t no kind o’ use to spile it all by rampaging ’round too soon.”

There was wisdom undeniable in this, and, accordingly, we waited, taking turns at the hunter’s terrible pipe in lieu of supper, and laying our plan of attack.  This last was simple enough, as our resources, or rather our lack of them, would make it.  At midnight we would move upon the enemy, feeling our way along the river till we should discover the ford by which the captive party had crossed.  The stream safely passed, we would deploy and surround the camp of the Indians, and at the signal, which was to be the report of Yeates’s rifle, we were to close in and smite, giving no quarter.

The old borderer dwelt at length upon the need for this severity, saying that a single Cherokee escaping would bring the warriors of the Erati tribe down upon us to cut off all chance of our retreat with the women.

“Onless I’m mightily out o’ my reckoning, this here spot we’re a-setting on ain’t more than a day’s Injun-running from the Tuckasege Towns.  With them gals to hender us we ain’t a-going to be in no fettle for a skimper-scamper race with a fresh wheen o’ the redskins.  Therefore and wherefore, says I, make them chopping-knives o’ your’n cut and come again, even to the dividing erpart of soul and marrer.”

Dick laughed, and, speaking for both of us, said between his teeth that we were not like to be over-merciful.

But now the old wolf of the border gave us a glimpse of an unsuspected side of him, taking Jennifer sharply to task and reading him a homily on the sin of vengeance for vengeance’s sake.  In this harangue he evinced a most astonishing tongue-grasp of Scripture, and for a good half-hour the air was thick with texts.  And to cap the climax, when the sermon paused he laid his pipe aside, doffed his cap, and went upon his knees to pour forth such a militant prayer as brought my father’s stories of the grim old fighting Roundheads most vividly to mind.

Here, being as good a place as any, I may say frankly that I never fully understood this side of Ephraim Yeates.  Like all the hardy borderers, he was a fighter by instinct and inclination; and I can bear him witness that when he smote the “Amalekites,” as he would call them—­red skin or red coat—­he smote them hip and thigh, and was as ruthless as that British Captain Turnbull who slew the wounded.  Yet withal, on the very edge of battle, or mayhap fair in the midst of it, he was like to fall upon his knees to pray most fervently; though, as I have hinted, his prayers were like his blows—­of the biting sort, full of Scriptural anathema upon the enemy.