He inflated his cheeks and blew hard upon the pipe, and a number of white stripes upon the surface of the black cloth began to rise and swell until they assumed, in the darkness, the appearance of a ghastly skeleton head. When it was inflated he turned a stop which kept in the air, and putting up his hand, turned the slides of a pair of small "bull's-eye" lamps, and the Skeleton Scout was before them. Floyd could not avoid a hearty laugh at the ease with which the thing was done. Seth joined in the laugh, turned the stop and allowed the air to escape, pulled down the contrivance and pushed it under his loose hunting-shirt, and appeared in his own person.
"It don't take me tew moments tew change characters and be Nabockalish or Yankee Seth, jest ez I like," he said. "Let the gal go to camp a minnit, Will. I want tew speak tew yew."
"A moment, my friend, and then I will go," said Madge. "How did you produce the appearance of the fiery serpent upon the rocks, after we were hidden in the hole in the rock."
"I dropped a train of gunpowder in the shape I wanted it, and set fire tew it," the Yankee said, laughing. "'Most any specter will be ez easy 'counted fer ez I am, if people could only git tew the root. There, go away, gal."
Madge went slowly back to camp, and the scout stood a moment in deep thought.
"Yew seen them graves by the ruined cabin in the woods, my boy?" said he. "I didn't tell yew whose they were, because that would 'a' bin ez good ez telling yew my secret. My wife and children lay thar, jest ez I buried 'em when I found 'em scalped and gory, when I cum back from a hunt. I've lived a scout and hunter since, and not a bad one, ez old man Harrison will tell yew, and I've had my revenge on a few of the reptiles. When I wear the disguise of the Skeleton Scout I spare none."
"And how is it you leave no sign?" said Floyd.
"Yew didn't look in the right place. Both those dead hounds yew seen were stabbed threw the brain behind the ear. I've got a knife with a thin blade, that leaves no blood outside. Perhaps I'm wrong, but, whenever that idee comes over me, I think of them green graves on the sunny slope, and then I'm an iron man ag'in. Don't tell this tew any one, and try tew forgive me if I have bin tew blame."
Floyd silently extended his hand and the scout grasped it firmly in his own. They were tried friends from that hour, and never in the after peril which came to that frontier forgot the dangers they had shared together.
Matthew Floyd, under the care of a good surgeon, recovered somewhat his shattered faculties, but, the sound of an Indian war-whoop would always drive him wild in a moment.