After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved his claim to white blood. But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so frightfully wild in their expression, a look of terror and desperation, like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead, cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which were several stains of a brownish-black colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His hunting-knife, which was nearly two feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle, but in its stead he grasped a Kentucky rifle.
Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from under his shaggy eyebrows.
“You don’t seem to like the company you’ve got into,” said he. “Do I look so very desperate, then? Is it written so plainly on my face?”
“What should there be written upon your face?”
“What? What? Them questions are for fools and children.”
“I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as a countryman, I beseech you——”
“Christian?” interrupted he, with a hollow laugh. “Countryman!” He struck the butt of his rifle hard upon the ground. “That is my countryman—my only friend!” he continued, as he examined the flint and lock of his weapon. “That releases from all troubles: that’s a true friend. Pooh! perhaps it’ll release you too—put you to rest.”
These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.
“Put him to rest, as well as——. Pooh! One more or less—Perhaps it would drive away that cursed spectre.”
All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.