"Who do you mean?" thundered Gaut Gurley.
"Ask your own conscience," replied the attorney, fearlessly confronting the prisoner.
"'Tis false as hell!" rejoined Gaut, with a countenance convulsed with rage.
"No, you mistake,—it is as true as hell," promptly retorted the other; "or, rather, as true as there is one for such wretches as you. Mr. Phillips," he added, turning to the hunter, who stood a little in the background, with his rifle poised on his left arm, with an air of carelessness, but, as a close inspection would have shown, so grasped by his right hand, held down out of sight, as to enable him to bring it to an instant aim,—"Mr. Phillips, were you in the habit of going to Quebec, fall and spring, to dispose of your peltries, about the time of this plotted insurrection?"
"I was."
"Did you ever have the Canada leader I have spoken of pointed out to you, previous to the outbreak?"
"Often, on going down the Chaudiere river, often; why, I knew him by sight as well as the devil knows his hogs!"
"Did you afterwards see and identify him in this region?"
"I did."
"Is not, then, all I have stated true; and is not the prisoner, here, the man?"