“Cut the tug, the buffalo-tug!” shouted the culprit, thrusting his arms as far from his back as he could, and displaying the thong of bison-skin, which his struggles had almost buried in his flesh.  A single touch of the steel, rewarded by such a yell of transport as was never before heard in those savage retreats, sufficed to sever the bond; and Stackpole, leaping on the earth, began to testify his joy in modes as novel as they were frantic.  His first act was to fling his arms round the neck of his steed, which he hugged and kissed with the most rapturous affection, doubtless in requital of the docility it had shown when docility was so necessary to its rider’s life; his second, to leap half a dozen times into the air, feeling his neck all the time, and uttering the most singular and vociferous cries, as if to make double trial of the condition of his windpipe; his third, to bawl aloud, directing the important question to the soldier, “How many days has it been since they hanged me?  War it to-day, or yesterday, or the day before? or war it a whole year ago? for may I be next hung to the horn of a buffalo, instead of the limb of a beech tree, if I didn’t feel as if I had been squeaking thar ever since the beginning of creation!  Cock-a-doodle-doo! him that ar’nt born to be hanged, won’t be hanged, no-how!” Then running to Edith, who sat watching his proceedings with silent amazement, he flung himself on his knees, seized the hem of her riding-habit, which he kissed with the fervour of an adorer, exclaiming with a vehement sincerity, that made the whole action still more strangely ludicrous, “Oh! you splendiferous creatur’! you angeliferous anngel! here am I, Ralph Stackpole the Screamer, that can whip all Kentucky, white, black, mixed, and Injun; and I’m the man to go with you to the ends of the ’arth, to fight, die, work, beg, and steal bosses for you!  I am, and you may make a little dog of me; you may, or a niggur, or a boss, or a door-post, or a back-log, or a dinner,—­’tarnal death to me, but you may eat me!  I’m the man to feel a favour, partickelarly when it comes to helping me out of a halter; and so jist say the word who I shall lick, to begin on; for I’m your slave jist as much as that niggur, to go with you, as I said afore, to the ends of the ’arth, and the length of Kentucky over?”

“Away with you, you scoundrel and jackanapes,” said Roland, for to this ardent expression of gratitude Edith was herself too much frightened to reply.

“Strannger!” cried the offended horse-thief, “you cut the tug, and you cut the halter; and so, though you did it only on hard axing, I’d take as many hard words of you as you can pick out of a dictionary,—­I will, ’tarnal death to me.  But as for madam thar, the anngel, she saved my life, and I go my death in her sarvice; and now’s the time to show sarvice, for thar’s danger abroad in the forest.”

“Danger!” echoed Roland, his anxiety banishing the disgust with which he was so much inclined to regard the worthy horse-thief; “what makes you say that?”