“I don’t know why you didn’t,” said the scout, bluntly. “You can’t trust one of the race half so far as you can see ’em. That I found out long ago. They never enjoy themselves half so much as they do when they are burning, and cutting, and slashing round and raising scalps. That’s what they were made for I suppose, and I don’t know as they can help it.”
“Do you think that they are close at hand?” asked Ned, as he took his rifle from the corner of the room and carefully examined the priming.
“Yes, I expect ’em any moment. It was a wonder that they didn’t get here afore me. I guess they hunted longer for my trail than I thought they would. But they had ought to know better by this time, than to think they could catch me arter I’ve got wind of what they’re up to.”
“What had we better do?” asked the settler, anxiously. “Stick by the cabin, hadn’t we?”
“Yes. It’s all the sight we’ve got. If we run for the woods, like as not we shall stumble right into their clutches. The walls of the cabin ar’ thick, and we’ve got three rifles to help ourselves with. We’re safer here than we should be anywhere else.”
“But there is another one to help us,” said Ruth. “The man up in the loft. He must be sound asleep not to hear us. Had we not better call him?”
“I’m a-coming,” cried a voice, overhead. “I’ll be down thar jest as soon as I can get my legs into my trowsers. Rot the luck, that ain’t the right hole anyway. I never could get on my fixin’s in the dark. Jerusalem! there goes a gallows-button! Right down through a crack in the floor as sure as preaching. Say, below there! Ye didn’t hear it drop, did ye?”
No answer was made to this inquiry, while the scout stared upward for a moment as if in astonishment, and then turned his inquiring gaze into the faces of those about him, as though he was mutely demanding who the stranger was.
But they had no chance to answer him, before a huge pair of feet appeared upon the upper round of the ladder, followed by a pair of legs so long that Dick began to wonder if any body would follow at all. But it did at length, crowned by a head, and the whole of the stranger was revealed to his wondering gaze.
Long and lank, it seemed to Dick as though he must be at least seven feet in hight. He had only stopped to half clothe himself, and the rest of his garments he carried upon his arm. His face was sharp and thin, and the lower part of it was covered with a long, thin beard, which stuck out in every direction like the quills of a porcupine. His eyes, which were small and restless, had a sharp look about them, and his tone and twang proclaimed him at once to be a Yankee.