“Go on, Mr Stump!”
“Wal, the story air this. Arter we kim from the Alamo Crik, the fellurs that went in sarch o’ them Injuns, foun’ out they wan’t Injuns at all. Ye hev heern that yurself. From the fixins that war diskevered in the holler tree, it air clur that what we seed on the Bluff war a party o’ whites. I hed a surspishun o’t myself—soon as I seed them curds they’d left ahint ’em in the shanty.”
“It was the same, then, who visited the jacalé at night—the same Phalim saw?”
“Ne’er a doubt o’ it. Them same Mexikins.”
“What reason have you to think they were Mexicans?”
“The best o’ all reezuns. I foun’ ’em out to be; traced the hul kit o’ ’em to thur caché.”
The young Creole made no rejoinder. Zeb’s story promised a revelation that might be favourable to her hopes. She stood resignedly waiting for him to continue.
“Ye see, the curds, an also some words, the which the Irish war able to sort o’ pernounce, arter a fashun o’ his own, tolt me they must a been o’ the yeller-belly breed; an sartint ’bout that much, I war able to gie a tol’able guess as to whar they hed kim from. I know’d enuf o’ the Mexikins o’ these parts to think o’ four as answered thar descripshun to a T. As to the Injun duds, thar warn’t nuthin’ in them to bamboozle me. Arter this, I ked a gone straight to the hul four fellurs, an pinted ’em out for sartin. One o’ ’em, for sure sartin. On him I’d made my mark. I war confident o’ havin’ did thet.”
“Your mark! How, Zeb?”
“Ye remimber the shot I fired from the door o’ the shanty?”