"The season of the year brought me," Nick replied to her as he had done to Handsome.
"Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me, ma'am."
"Swear to that."
"'Tain't necessary. I have said it."
"Do you know what would happen to you if I should find that you were acting as a spy?"
"I suppose I could guess."
"I'd have you burned at the stake, just as Indians used to burn their captives."
"Well, ma'am, I reckon I've lived too long a time now to be much afraid of death. When a man has passed eighty, he ain't much afraid of things."
"Are you as old as that?"