“But, father, I cannot see that this alters the case.  If it be wrong in a Frenchman to hire savages to fight his enemies, it would seem to be equally wrong in an Englishman. You will admit this, Pathfinder?”

“It’s reasonable, it’s reasonable; and I have never been one of them that has raised a cry ag’in the Frenchers for doing the very thing we do ourselves.  Still it is worse to consort with a Mingo than to consort with a Delaware.  If any of that just tribe were left, I should think it no sin to send them out ag’in the foe.”

“And yet they scalp and slay young and old, women and children!”

“They have their gifts, Mabel, and are not to be blamed for following them; natur’ is natur’, though the different tribes have different ways of showing it.  For my part I am white, and endeavor to maintain white feelings.”

“This is all unintelligible to me,” answered Mabel.  “What is right in King George, it would seem, ought to be right in King Louis.”

As all parties, Mabel excepted, seemed satisfied with the course the discussion had taken, no one appeared to think it necessary to pursue the subject.  Supper was no sooner ended than the Sergeant dismissed his guests, and then held a long and confidential dialogue with his daughter.  He was little addicted to giving way to the gentler emotions, but the novelty of his present situation awakened feelings that he was unused to experience.  The soldier or the sailor, so long as he acts under the immediate supervision of a superior, thinks little of the risks he runs, but the moment he feels the responsibility of command, all the hazards of his undertaking begin to associate themselves in his mind:  with the chances of success or failure.  While he dwells less on his own personal danger, perhaps, than when that is the principal consideration, he has more lively general perceptions of all the risks, and submits more to the influence of the feelings which doubt creates.  Such was now the case with Sergeant Dunham, who, instead of looking forward to victory as certain, according to his usual habits, began to feel the possibility that he might be parting with his child for ever.

Never before had Mabel struck him as so beautiful as she appeared that night.  Possibly she never had displayed so many engaging qualities to her father; for concern on his account had begun to be active in her breast; and then her sympathies met with unusual encouragement through those which had been stirred up in the sterner bosom of the veteran.  She had never been entirely at her ease with her parent, the great superiority of her education creating a sort of chasm, which had been widened by the military severity of manner he had acquired by dealing so long with beings who could only be kept in subjection by an unremitted discipline.  On the present occasion, however, the conversation between the father and daughter became more confidential than usual, until Mabel rejoiced to find that it was gradually becoming endearing, a state of feeling that the warm-hearted girl had silently pined for in vain ever since her arrival.