“Dead red-skin! Hurrah for Barney!”
“Barney’s bullet through him, by the holies!” cried another. “Hollo, old sky-blue! Come hyar and see what ye’ve done!”
The rest of the hunters, along with the ci-devant soldier, now rode forward to the copse. I moved slowly after. On coming up, I saw them dragging the body of an Indian into the open ground: a naked savage, like the other. He was dead, and they were preparing to scalp him.
“Come now, Barney!” cried one of the men in a joking manner, “the har’s your’n. Why don’t ye off wid it, man?”
“It’s moine, dev yez say?” asked Barney, appealing to the speaker.
“Sartinly; you killed him. It’s your’n by right.”
“An’ it is raaly worth fifty dollars?”
“Good as wheat for that.”
“Would yez be so frindly, thin, as to cut it aff for me?”
“Oh! sartinly, wid all the plizyer of life,” replied the hunter, imitating Barney’s accent, at the same time severing the scalp, and handing it to him.