“For all that, you don’t look as healthy as when I saw you last. Maybe you’ve done something bad, that preys on your mind too much for your own good? Ha, ha! Or, likely, your friends have detected you in some of your devilments, and in consequence you have just escaped from confinement that was not extremely beneficial to your health? Which is it?”
“Neither the one nor the other. Nothing like that you hint at has occurred. I am still safe among those who think me their friend, and the secret of my friendship with you and your red lambs, I have securely locked in my own breast.”
“And you will have occasion, sir, to thank your lucky stars that you are on the good side of me and my red lambs, if we take it into our heads to fall upon your place. But why don’t you explain your presence here? Seems to me you’ve wandered quite a distance from your home.”
“I should have wandered further, had I not met you,” said McCabe. “But, before I give you the desired explanation, I wish you to tell me how it happens that you are here? I started out last night with the hope of finding you before night should come again, but my hope grew less at every step, and by dawn it had amounted almost to despair. I know where your village is, but sober second thought told me I couldn’t reach it in time to gain the object I have in view. How lucky that chance has thrown me in your way at this early hour. Surely the devil is on my side.”
“If not, you are on his side,” remarks the renegade, with a low laugh. “But you wish to know why I am here? My story is quickly told. Over there in the interior, a few miles from this point, there are three houses standing all alone, known by the name of the ‘Three Inns.’ Maybe you’ve seen or heard of them. Well, we waded into them last night, I and this handful of braves, and these are the result.”
The outlaw coolly points to a couple of gory scalps at his waist, and then to a number of others carried in a like manner by the Indians. Even Jim McCabe averts his eyes with a shudder.
“Now, your business with me?” inquires the chief.
“I will explain in a few words,” says McCabe. “Last evening a family left our settlement, and started down the river under cover of the darkness—removing, you see, to the first fort below. The family consists only of the old gentleman, his wife and daughter.”
“Their name?” interrupts the chief.
“Is Moreland. Mr. Moreland has long been one of the leading spirits of our place,” answers the other.