Red Cedar laughed bitterly. "Listen, gossip," he said to the monk, as he seized his arm, which he pressed like a vice: "you distrust me, and you are wrong. I wished once to leave you, I allow, but I no longer wish it. We will perish or escape together."
"Oh, oh! Are you speaking seriously, gossip?"
"Yes; for, trusting to the foolish promises of a priest, I resolved to reform; I altered my life, and led a painful existence; not injuring anybody, and toiling honestly. The men I wished to forget remembered me in their thirst for revenge. Paying no heed to my wish to repent, they fired my wretched jacal and killed my son. Now they track me like a wild beast, the old instincts are aroused in me, and the evil leaven that slept in my heart is fermenting afresh. They have declared a war to the death. Well, by heaven, I accept it, and will wage it without pity, truce, or mercy, not asking of them, if they captured me, less than I would give them if they fell into my hands. Let them take care, for I am Red Cedar! He whom the Indians call the Man-eater (Witchasta Joute) and I will devour their hearts. So, at present, be at your ease, monk, we shall not part again: you are my conscience—we are inseparable."
The squatter uttered those atrocious words with such an accent of rage and hatred, that the monk saw he really spoke the truth, and his evil instincts had definitively gained the upper hand. A hideous smile of joy curled his lips. "Well, gossip," he said, "go and look out, we will await you here."
During the squatter's absence not a word was uttered. Sutter was asleep, the monk thinking, and Ellen weeping. The poor girl had heard with sorrow mingled with horror her father's atrocious sentiments. She then measured the fearful depth of the abyss into which she was suddenly hurled, for Red Cedar's determination cut her off eternally from society, and condemned her to a life of grief and tears. After about an hour's absence Red Cedar re-appeared, and the expression of his face was joyous.
"Well?" the monk anxiously asked him.
"Good news," he replied; "I have discovered a refuge where I defy the cleverest bloodhounds of the prairies to track me."
"Is it far from here?"
"A very little distance; but that will prove our security. Our enemies will never suppose we had the impudence to hide so close to them."
"That is true; we will go there, then."