"What should I want of tramping after Indians in the dark, and perhaps catch an arrow in my paunch for my pains?" groaned the jailer; "though I have some notions of my own about the Indian part of the business."
"Trusting thy promise, I will relieve thee from thy bonds," said the lady, cutting the cords.
"I made no promise," said Bars, as soon as he was set at liberty, "though I will behave as if I had. These be brave Indians," he said to himself, slyly taking up the gold, "and pay handsomely for their right to be considered such. An' it be thy pleasure that it should be so," he added aloud, "these golden Indians shall remain Indians till the day of judgment, for all Bars—"
Dame Bars, now, from her nook, made her appearance on the scene.
"O, Sam!" she exclaimed, "be they gone, and have not they scalped you?"
"You can look for yourself, wife," answered Sam, passing his fingers through his shock of hair, as if to satisfy any doubts of his own. "But what should they want with my scalp, I wonder."
"I am sure I can't tell what they do with such things," said the dame, "unless to cover their own heads when they get bald."
"A pretty figure," grunted Bars, "my red crop would make on the top of one of them salvages. It never will come to that, goody. But I must not stay here talking about scalps, when, perhaps, the poor sentinel may have lost his." And he started toward the door.
"O do not go, do not go, Sam!" said his wife, throwing her arms around him; "they may be watching for thee on the outside."
"Women be always cowards," said the jailer; "but thou need not hug me so tight now. I warrant, having got what they wanted, they are in the woods before this time."