“Look for yourself! if the curtain is not lifted, I can see no better than the owl by daylight.”

Ishmael struck the breach of his rifle violently on the earth, and shouted in a voice that might easily have been heard by Ellen, had not her attention still continued rapt on the object which so unaccountably attracted her eyes in the distance.

“Nell!” continued the squatter, “away with you, fool! will you bring down punishment on your own head? Why, Nell!—she has forgotten her native speech; let us see if she can understand another language.”

Ishmael threw his rifle to his shoulder, and at the next moment it was pointed upward at the summit of the rock. Before time was given for a word of remonstrance, it had sent forth its contents, in its usual streak of bright flame. Ellen started like the frightened chamois, and uttering a piercing scream, she darted into the tent, with a swiftness that left it uncertain whether terror or actual injury had been the penalty of her offence.

The action of the squatter was too sudden and unexpected to admit of prevention, but the instant it was done, his sons manifested, in an unequivocal manner, the temper with which they witnessed the desperate measure. Angry and fierce glances were interchanged, and a murmur of disapprobation was uttered by the whole, in common.

“What has Ellen done, father,” said Asa, with a degree of spirit, which was the more striking from being unusual, “that she should be shot at like a straggling deer, or a hungry wolf?”

“Mischief,” deliberately returned the squatter; but with a cool expression of defiance in his eye that showed how little he was moved by the ill-concealed humour of his children. “Mischief, boy; mischief! take you heed that the disorder don’t spread.”

“It would need a different treatment in a man, than in yon screaming girl!”

“Asa, you ar’ a man, as you have often boasted; but remember I am your father, and your better.”

“I know it well; and what sort of a father?”

“Harkee, boy: I more than half believe that your drowsy head let in the Siouxes. Be modest in speech, my watchful son, or you may have to answer yet for the mischief your own bad conduct has brought upon us.”

“I’ll stay no longer to be hectored like a child in petticoats. You talk of law, as if you knew of none, and yet you keep me down, as though I had not life and wants of my own. I’ll stay no longer to be treated like one of your meanest cattle!”

“The world is wide, my gallant boy, and there’s many a noble plantation on it, without a tenant. Go; you have title deeds signed and sealed to your hand. Few fathers portion their children better than Ishmael Bush; you will say that for me, at least, when you get to be a wealthy landholder.”

“Look! father, look!” exclaimed several voices at once, seizing with avidity, an opportunity to interrupt a dialogue which threatened to become more violent.

“Look!” repeated Abiram, in a voice which sounded hollow and warning; “if you have time for any thing but quarrels, Ishmael, look!”

The squatter turned slowly from his offending son, and cast an eye, that still lowered with deep resentment upward; but which, the instant it caught a view of the object that now attracted the attention of all around him, changed its expression to one of astonishment and dismay.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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