"Wouldn't I have more chance to do hot work?"
"I don't see why," was the response.
"Wal, if you had been near me you would have seen. I scared these folks half to death, but, when they found out who I was, they was dreadful sweet onto me. That give me the chance I wanted with them, and then when the Senecas and our own boys seen me, they didn't interfere, so I had a free path to travel."
"How comes it you're in this scrape?"
"I got in among these folks so as to turn 'em over to you, and if it hadn't been for me you'd never got 'em neither."
"How do you make that out?"
"I knowed they meant to fight hard in the cavern, as they showed by picking off a couple of your warriors, but I got 'em to come out and move off up the ravine, knowing sartin sure they would walk into the trap that you had sot for 'em."
Jake Golcher seemed to be astounded at this statement, and his manner showed he was half persuaded there was some truth in it. If the fellow was really a Tory like himself he had no wish to harm him, but he was not fully persuaded, and he turned to Mr. Brainerd.
"You heard what he said, didn't you?"
"Not being deaf, I did."