“But you are unarmed,” continued the ranger, undaunted.
“Unarmed? Jumpin’ Jemima! can’t you see these arms? Jest look at that reach! I can pull a nigger’s hair at ten yards!”
“Yes, but you have no weapons.”
“Weepins? Law, no, but what the ’tarnal creation do a Maine wild-cat want o’ weepins! Jerewsilem! When I was a suckin’ cub in the manger I had pistols and knives for playthings, but I’m a man now, and have no further use for sech toys. Weepins! Ef an Injun should lose all respect for hisself, so far as tew come ’ithin ten yards o’ this personage, I tell you, stranger, he’d be apt tew run ag’in’ an iron weight as ’ud send him tew grass in the shakin’ o’ a possum’s ear. Oh, I’m a squealer! I’m a hard-shell snappin’-turkle from Sebago Pond! I’m an amphibious reptile, and I’m game tew the spine on land or water! I’m a six-hoss team with a mule tew lead, and ef you don’t believe it git up and ride. Let the red-skins come at me, ef they think o’ no better way tew die. I’ll skelp ’em with a single look. I’ll blister their confounded mugs with a single squint o’ my eye. Me? Darnation! I’m a-dewin’ business for old Mount Ætna, and there’s fire, smoke and lava b’ilin’ inside o’ me—”
“Say,” interrupted a man in the other boat; “jest cause that noisy chap to shet his meat-trap will yer?”
Jonathan Boggs needed no further bidding, and in silence the two boats drifted on through the increasing gloom.
CHAPTER VIII.
TWO WELL-MATCHED VILLAINS.
To a spot about ten miles distant from the settlement we now ask the attention of the indulgent reader.
It is the morning following the night whose events we have just described; the sun has risen in a cloudless sky, and Nature seems exerting herself to make existence in this world desirable. It is a lovely morning, made refreshing by a steady breeze, and the trees ring with the lays of a thousand feathered warblers singing glad welcome to the orb of day.
At a place where the wood is thickest a man is moving along with stealthy, cat-like steps, dodging from tree to tree in a very curious manner. He is a man of medium proportions, wearing the buck-skin garb of a hunter, and armed with the weapons usually carried by the early pioneers and wood-rangers. From beneath a coon-skin cap, lank locks of red hair fall just to his shoulders, and a coarse beard of the same hue disfigures, rather than adorns, his face. There is an ugly patch on his left check, and his right eye is completely hidden by a rough bandage that is tied around his head, all giving him a decidedly unprepossessing, if not repulsive, look.