"You lie! I am a hunter."
"Of scalps," the stranger immediately retorted, "unless you have given up that lucrative and honourable profession since your last expedition to the village of the Coras."
"Oh!" the squatter shouted with an indescribable burst of fury, "He is a coward who hides his face while uttering such words."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and let the folds of his mantle fall sharply.
"Do you recognise me, Red Cedar, since your conscience has not yet whispered my name to you?"
"Oh!" the three men exclaimed in horror, and instinctively recoiling "Don Pablo de Zarate!"
"Yes," the young man continued, "Don Pablo, who has come, Red Cedar, to ask of you an account of his sister, whom you carried off."
Red Cedar was in a state of extraordinary agitation: with eyes dilated by terror, and contracted features, he felt the cold perspiration beading on his temples at this unexpected apparition.
"Ah!" he said in a hollow voice, "Do the dead, then, leave the tomb?"
"Yes," the young man shouted loudly, "they leave their tomb to tear your victims from you. Red Cedar, restore me my sister!"