“Why was he so cruel in his killing?” asked the scout.
“Because the white man was a coward. He feared to face our warriors, but he shot an old woman!” answered the little maid; and then, inspired with confidence by the scout’s kind and pitiful expression, she related the whole story of the savage and wanton murder perpetrated by the Flint, the subsequent vengeance of her people, and the unchecked flight and dispersion of Jake’s comrades. The old woman who had been slain, she said, was her grandmother, and the old man who had been captured was her grandfather.
“Friends, our business has been done for us,” said the scout on rejoining his comrades, “so we’ve nothing to do but return home.”
He then told them in detail what the Indian girl had related.
“Of course,” he added, “we’ve no right to find fault wi’ the Redskins for punishin’ the murderer arter their own fashion, though we might wish they had bin somewhat more merciful—”
“No, we mightn’t,” interrupted Crux stoutly. “The Flint got off easy in my opinion. If I had had the doin’ o’t, I’d have roasted him alive.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Crux,” returned Ben, with a benignant smile. “Young chaps like you are always, accordin’ to your own showin’, worse than the devil himself when your blood’s roused by indignation at cruelty or injustice, but you sing a good deal softer when you come to the scratch with your enemy in your power.”
“You’re wrong, Hunky Ben,” retorted Crux firmly. “Any man as would blow the brains out of a poor old woman in cold blood, as the Flint did, desarves the worst that can be done to him.”
“I didn’t say nowt about what he desarves,” returned the scout; “I was speakin’ about what you would do if you’d got the killin’ of him.”
“Well, well, mates,” said Dick Darvall, a little impatiently, “seems to me that we’re wastin’ our wind, for the miserable wretch, bein’ defunct, is beyond the malice o’ red man or white. I therefore vote that we stop palaverin’, ’bout ship, clap on all sail an’ lay our course for home.”