The Highlander flushed, stammering out:
“For your proffered loan, I accept it with the best will in the world; and as to your offer of a hiding-place, troth! I’m badly needing one. Gin it were no inconvenience——”
“None in the world.”
“I will be remembering you for a generous foe till the day of my death. You’re a man to ride the water wi’.”
“Lard! There’s no generosity in it. Every Mohawk thinks it a pleasure to help any man break the laws. Besides, I count on you to help drive away the doldrums. Do you care for a hand at piquet now, Captain?”
“With pleasure. I find in the cartes great diversion, but by your leave I’ll first unloose your man Watkins.”
“’Slife, I had forgot him. We’ll have him brew us a punch and make a night of it. Sleep and I are a thousand miles apart.”
The material for this chapter was furnished me with great particularity by Captain Donald Roy Macdonald. From his narrative to me, I set down the story in substance as he told it. K. M.