“Ay, that is just the difference between ploughing and harrowing,” returned the Sergeant, with a grim smile.  “But let him tell Mabel his mind, and there will be an end of his suit.  I very well know that my daughter will never be the wife of Lieutenant Muir.”

This was said in a way that was tantamount to declaring that no daughter of his ever should become the wife of the person in question.  Mabel had colored, trembled, half laughed, and looked uneasy; but, rallying her spirit, she said, in a voice so cheerful as completely to conceal her agitation, “But, father, we might better wait until Mr. Muir manifests a wish that your daughter would have him, or rather a wish to have your daughter, lest we get the fable of sour grapes thrown into our faces.”

“And what is that fable, Mabel?” eagerly demanded Pathfinder, who was anything but learned in the ordinary lore of white men.  “Tell it to us, in your own pretty way; I daresay the Sergeant never heard it.”

Mabel repeated the well-known fable, and, as her suitor had desired, in her own pretty way, which was a way to keep his eyes riveted on her face, and the whole of his honest countenance covered with a smile.

“That was like a fox!” cried Pathfinder, when she had ceased; “ay, and like a Mingo, too, cunning and cruel; that is the way with both the riptyles.  As to grapes, they are sour enough in this part of the country, even to them that can get at them, though I daresay there are seasons and times and places where they are sourer to them that can’t.  I should judge, now, my scalp is very sour in Mingo eyes.”

“The sour grapes will be the other way, child, and it is Mr. Muir who will make the complaint.  You would never marry that man, Mabel?”

“Not she,” put in Cap; “a fellow who is only half a soldier after all.  The story of them there grapes is quite a circumstance.”

“I think little of marrying any one, dear father and dear uncle, and would rather talk about it less, if you please.  But, did I think of marrying at all, I do believe a man whose affections have already been tried by three or four wives would scarcely be my choice.”

The Sergeant nodded at the guide, as much as to say, You see how the land lies; and then he had sufficient consideration for his daughter’s feelings to change the subject.

“Neither you nor Mabel, brother Cap,” he resumed, “can have any legal authority with the little garrison I leave behind on the island; but you may counsel and influence.  Strictly speaking, Corporal M’Nab will be the commanding officer, and I have endeavored to impress him with a sense of his dignity, lest he might give way too much to the superior rank of Lieutenant Muir, who, being a volunteer, can have no right to interfere with the duty.  I wish you to sustain the Corporal, brother Cap; for should the Quartermaster once break through the regulations of the expedition, he may pretend to command me, as well as M’Nab.”