“I rather calculate not Mister,” sneered the settler.  “Besides I don’t eat the United States subjects; consequently they’ve no claim to interfere.”

“Who the devil do you eat then,” asked Jackson, gathering courage with his curiosity, and advancing a pace or two nearer the fire, “or is it all a hum?”

The settler approached the fire, stooped a little, and applying his shoulder to the top of the opening, thrust his right hand and arm up the chimney.

“I reckon that’s no hum,” he said, producing and throwing upon the table a piece of dark dry flesh, that resembled in appearance the upper part of a human arm.  “If you’re fond of a relish,” he pursued with a fierce laugh; “you’ll find that mighty well suited to the palate—­quite as sweet as a bit of smok’d venison.”

“Why you don’t really mean to say that’s part of a man?” demanded Jackson, advancing cautiously to the table, and turning over the shrivelled mass with the point of his dagger.  “Why, I declare, its just the color of my dried beef.”

“But I do though—­and what’s more, of my own killin’ and dryin’.  Purty naturist you must be not to see that’s off an Ingin’s arm.”

“Oh an Ingin’s only, is it?” returned the Aid-de-Camp, whose apprehension began rapidly to subside, now that he had obtained the conviction that it was not the flesh of a white man.  “Well, I’m sure! who’d have thought it.  I take it, old cock, you’ve been in the wars as well as myself.”

“A little or so I reckon, and I expect to be in them agin shortly—­as soon as my stock of food’s out.  I’ve only a thigh bone to pick after this, and then I’m off.  But why don’t you take your seat at the fire.  There’s nothin’ so out of the way in the sight of a naked arm, is there?  I reckon if you’re a soger, you must have seen many a one lopped off in the wars.”

“Yes, friend,” said Jackson, altering the position of the table and placing it between the settler and himself; “a good many lopped off, as you say, and in a devil of a stew, but not exactly eaten.  However be so good as to return this to the chimney, and when I’ve eaten something from my bag I’ll listen to what you have to say about it.”

“Jist so, and go without my own supper I suppose, to please you.  But tarnation, while you’re eatin’ a bit of your hung beef I’ll try a snack of mine.”

So saying he deliberately took from the table the dried arm he had previously flung there, and, removing a large clasp knife from a pocket beneath his coarse hunting frock, proceeded to help himself to several thin slices, corresponding precisely in appearance with those which the Aid-de-Camp divided in the same manner.

Jackson had managed to swallow three or four pieces of his favorite hung beef with all the avidity of an appetite, rendered keen by the absence of every other stimulant than hunger; but no sooner did he perceive his host fastening with a degree of fury on his unnatural food, than, sick and full of loathing, his stomach rejected further aliment, and he was compelled to desist.  During all this time Grantham, who, although he had assumed the manner and attitude of a sleeping man, was a watchful observer of all that passed, neither moved nor uttered a syllable, except on one occasion to put away from him the food Jackson had offered.