"Aie!" Andrés whined, "I tell you I do not know."
"Malediction!" Red Cedar went on. "I will kill you, picaro, if you are obstinate."
"Let that man go, and I will tell you all you wish to know," was said in a firm voice by a hunter, who at this moment appeared on the threshold.
The two men turned in amazement.
"Nathan!" Red Cedar shouted on recognising his son. "What are you doing here?"
"I will tell you, father," the young man said, as he entered the room.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
NATHAN.
Nathan was not asleep, as Ellen supposed, when she urged on Shaw to devote himself to liberate Doña Clara, and he had listened attentively to the conversation. Nathan was a man of about thirty years of age, who, both physically and morally, bore a marked resemblance to his father. Hence the old squatter had concentrated in him all the affection which his uncultivated savage nature was capable of feeling. Since the fatal night, when the chief of the Coras had avenged himself for the burning of his village and the murder of its inhabitants, Nathan's character had grown still more gloomy; a dull and deep hatred boiled in his heart against the whole human race; he only dreamed of assassination: he had sworn in his heart to revenge on all those who fell into his hands the injury one man had inflicted on him; in a word, Nathan loved none and hated everything.