“And who may that be?”
“Who but his darter. The most beautifullest gal that this coon ever set eyes on. Bless her, I hope no hurt won’t come to her, and there shan’t either, if Cris Carrol can prevent it.”
In this manner did the honest hunter comment on the alarming news brought by the fugitives from Tampa Bay.
Not that he approached the spot closely. No; he had formed an idea of the manner in which he might be most useful; and, to do so, he must carefully avoid any appearance of interference between the contending parties.
He, therefore, pursued his occupation of hunting; but contrived materially to narrow the circle of his excursions.
Often as the image of Alice Rody presented itself to his mind, he would heave a painful sigh.
“How such a gal came to be a child of that old trait’rous heathen is more nor I can reckon up. It’s one of them thar things as philosophers call startlers!”
In one of these moralising, wandering moods the old hunter was seated on a tree stump on the afternoon of a day that had been more than usually fatiguing to him.
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, took a plug of tobacco from his pouch, and began to cut up a supply for another smoke.
“Ah!” muttered he, shaking his head, “I remember the time when there was happiness in the savannahs, and when them red-skins were ready to help the white man rather than fight agin them. Them times is gone from hyar for ever!”