“The mithers av ’em can’t be more sorry fur the boys than is Denny Regan; but it’s the divil’s own tongue that says I fotched ’em into the scrape. If I was on me feet, I’d make yez swaller that same, you dried-up old wolf-skin.”
“Quarrelin’ won’t mend the matter; but you know as well as I do, Denny, that it was your loose tongue and your crazy ways that made all the trouble.”
“I know it jist as well as you do, and that’s not at all. Tell me, now, Pap Byers, what Injuns is these that’s got us?”
“Blackfeet—the bloodiest, meanest and most savagerous of all the red-skins in these parts.”
“And what will they do wid us?”
“Kill us—tortur’ us—burn us, most likely.”
“Is it burnin’ ye say? Och, be the powers! it makes me flesh crawl to think av it. The bloody haythins! Is it sure enough burnin’ that they do, or do they jist bother a man and let him go?”
“It’s burnin’, I tell ye—burnin’ by a slow fire—roastin’, fryin’, br’llin’. Thar ain’t any let go about it; it holds on fur hours, and you suffer death a dozen times afore you die onst.”
“Howly mither of Moses! That bates purgatory, intirely. To think that one av the ould shtock av the O’Regans should be roasted alive! I vow to the blissed Vargin, if I can only git clare of this shcrape, I’ll not shpake a mortal word to any livin’ man—or woman, fur that matter—fur a long six months, and I’ll begin at onst to kape me vow.”
The Irishman was silent. Byers spoke to him after a while; but Dennis did not reply. Again Byers spoke to him; but a snore was the only answer he received.