“This is brave talking,” he at length grumbled; “but to my judgment, too lawyer-like, for a straight forward, fair-weather, and foul-weather hunter.”

“I claim to be no better than a trapper,” the other meekly answered.

“Hunter or trapper—there is little difference. I have come, old man, into these districts because I found the law sitting too tight upon me, and am not over fond of neighbours who can’t settle a dispute without troubling a justice and twelve men; but I didn’t come to be robb’d of my plunder, and then to say thank’ee to the man who did it!”

“He, who ventures far into the prairies, must abide by the ways of its owners.”

“Owners!” echoed the squatter, “I am as rightful an owner of the land I stand on, as any governor in the States! Can you tell me, stranger, where the law or the reason, is to be found, which says that one man shall have a section, or a town, or perhaps a county to his use, and another have to beg for earth to make his grave in? This is not nature, and I deny that it is law. That is, your legal law.”

“I cannot say that you are wrong,” returned the trapper, whose opinions on this important topic, though drawn from very different premises, were in singular accordance with those of his companion, “and I have often thought and said as much, when and where I have believed my voice could be heard. But your beasts are stolen by them who claim to be masters of all they find in the deserts.”

“They had better not dispute that matter with a man who knows better,” said the other in a portentous voice, though it seemed deep and sluggish as he who spoke. “I call myself a fair trader, and one who gives to his chaps as good as he receives. You saw the Indians?”

“I did—they held me a prisoner, while they stole into your camp.”

“It would have been more like a white man and a Christian, to have let me known as much in better season,” retorted Ishmael, casting another ominous sidelong glance at the trapper, as if still meditating evil. “I am not much given to call every man, I fall in with, cousin, but colour should be something, when Christians meet in such a place as this. But what is done, is done, and cannot be mended, by words. Come out of your ambush, boys; here is no one but the old man: he has eaten of my bread, and should be our friend; though there is such good reason to suspect him of harbouring with our enemies.”

The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the explanations and denials to which he had just listened. The summons of the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate accession to their party. Four or five of his sons made their appearance from beneath as many covers, where they had been posted under the impression that the figures they had seen, on the swell of the prairie, were a part of the Sioux band. As each man approached, and dropped his rifle into the hollow of his arm, he cast an indolent but enquiring glance at the stranger, though neither of them expressed the least curiosity to know whence he had come or why he was there. This forbearance, however, proceeded only in part, from the sluggishness of their common temper; for long and frequent experience in scenes of a similar character, had taught them the virtue of discretion. The trapper endured their sullen scrutiny with the steadiness of one as practised as themselves, and with the entire composure of innocence. Content with the momentary examination he had made, the eldest of the group, who was in truth the delinquent sentinel by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so well profited, turned towards his father and said bluntly—

“If this man is all that is left of the party I saw on the upland, yonder, we haven’t altogether thrown away our ammunition.”

“Asa, you are right,” said the father, turning suddenly on the trapper, a lost idea being recalled by the hint of his son. “How is it, stranger; there were three of you, just now, or there is no virtue in moonlight?”