"How so? Has my son entered into a compact with my enemies?"
"Yes; as he arranged with them to carry off your prisoner."
"Oh! I will kill him if he prove a traitor!" the squatter shouted with an accent that made the blood run cold in the veins of his hearers.
Nathan fell back two steps, drew his knife from his boot, and showed it to his father.
"That is done," he said, harshly. "Shaw tried to stab me, so I killed him."
After these mournful words, there was a moment of silence in the rancho. All these men, though their hearts were steeled by crime, shuddered involuntarily. Without, the night was gloomy; the wind whistled sadly; the flickering light of the candle threw a weird light over the scene, which contained a certain degree of terrible poetry. The squatter passed his hard hand over his dank brow. A sigh, like a howl, painfully forced its way from his oppressed chest.
"He was my last born," he said, in a voice broken by an emotion he could not control. "He deserved death, but he ought not to have received it at his brother's hands."
"Father!" Nathan muttered.
"Silence!" Red Cedar shouted, in a hollow voice, as he stamped his foot passionately on the ground; "What is done cannot be undone; but woe to my enemies' family! Oh! I feel now that I can take such vengeance on them as will make all shudder who hear it spoken of!"
After uttering these words, which were listened to in silence, the squatter walked a few steps up the rancho. He approached a table, seized a bottle half full of mezcal that stood on it, and emptied it at a draught. When he had finished drinking, he threw down the bottle, which broke with a crash, and said to his mates in a hollow voice—