"Why, by the gate, seemingly," the other replied, unmoved.
"You must be a sorcerer, then!"
"Perhaps I am."
"A truce with your jokes, mixed-blood, you have sold us to your brothers the redskins."
A sinister smile passed over the countenance of the half-breed; the captain perceived it.
"But your treachery shall not profit you, you miserable scoundrel!" he said, in a voice of thunder; "you shall be the first victim of it."
The hunter disengaged himself by a quick, unexpected movement; then, with a spring backwards, and clapping his gun to his shoulder, he said—
"We shall see," with a sneer.
These two men, placed face to face upon that narrow platform, lighted by the sinister reflection of the fire, the intensity of which increased every minute, would have had a terrific expression for the spectator who was able to contemplate them coolly.
Each of them personified in himself those two races confronted in the United States, whose struggle will only finish by the complete extinction of the one to the profit of the other.