"Come! Make up your mind; I have no time to waste in chattering. What is your decision?"
"This is what I have to say to you, Mr. John Davis, who hunt men with dogs less ferocious than yourself, which in obeying you only yield to their instincts—you are a villain! And if you only reckon on my help in regaining your Negro, you may consider him lost."
"Ah, that is it!" the American shouted, as he gnashed his teeth furiously, and turned to his servants; "fire at him! Fire! Fire!"
And joining example to precept, he quickly shouldered his gun and fired. His servants imitated him, and four shots were confounded in a single explosion, which the echoes of the forest mournfully repeated.
[CHAPTER II.]
QUONIAM.
The Canadian did not lose one of his adversaries' movements while he was speaking with them; hence, when the shots ordered by John Davis were fired, they proved ineffectual; he had rapidly hidden himself behind a tree, and the bullets whistled harmlessly past his ears.
The slave-dealer was furious at being thus foiled by the hunter; he gave him the most fearful threats, blasphemed, and stamped his foot in rage.
But threats and imprecations availed but little; unless they swam the river, which was impracticable, in the face of a man so resolute as the hunter seemed to be, there were no means of taking any vengeance on him, or recapturing the slave he had so deliberately taken under his protection.