“He said,” replied Edith, who had listened mournfully, but in silence, to the young man’s hasty expressions, like one who was too well acquainted with the impetuosity of his temper to think of opposing him in his angry moments, or perhaps because her spirits were too much subdued by her fears to allow her to play the monitress,—­“He said, and frowningly too, ’that soft words were with him the prelude to hard resolutions, and that where he could not win as the turtle, he could take his prey like a vulture;’—­or some such words of anger.  Now, Roland, I have twice before dreamed of this man, and on each occasion a heavy calamity ensued, and that on the following day.  I dreamed of him the night before our uncle died.  I dreamed a second time, and the next day he produced and recorded the will that robbed us of our inheritance.  I dreamed of him again last night; and what evil is now hovering over us I know not;—­but, it is foolish of me to say so,—­yet my fears tell me it will be something dreadful.”

“Your fears, I hope, will deceive you,” said Roland, smiling in spite of himself at this little display of weakness on the part of Edith.  “I have much confidence in this girl, Telie, though I can scarce tell why.  A free road and a round gallop will carry us to our journey’s end by nightfall; and, at the worst, we shall have bright starlight to light us on.  Be comforted, my cousin.  I begin heartily to suspect yon cowardly Dodge, or Dodger, or whatever he calls himself, has been imposed upon by his fears, and that he has actually seen no Indians at all.  The springing up of a bush from under his horse’s feet, and the starting away of a dozen frighted rabbits, might easily explain his conceit of the long-legged Indian, and his five murderous accomplices; and as for the savages seen in ambush at the Ford, the shaking of the cane-brake by the breeze, or by some skulking bear, would as readily account for them.  The idea of his being allowed to pass a crew of Indians in their lair, without being pursued, or even fired upon, is quite preposterous.”

These ideas, perhaps devised to dispel his kinswoman’s fears, were scarce uttered before they appeared highly reasonable to the inventor himself; and he straightway rode to Dodge’s side, and began to question him more closely than he had before had leisure to do, in relation to those wondrous adventures, the recounting of which had produced so serious a change in the destination of the party.  All his efforts, however, to obtain satisfactory confirmation of his suspicion were unavailing.  The man, now in a great measure relieved of his terrors, repeated his story with a thousand details, which convinced Roland that it was, in its chief features, correct.  That he had actually been attacked, or fired upon by some persons, Roland could not doubt, having heard the shots himself.  As to the ambush at the Ford, all he could say was, that he had actually seen several Indians,—­he knew not the number,—­stealing through the wood in the direction opposite the river, as if on the outlook for some expected party,—­Captain Forrester’s, he supposed, of which he had heard among the emigrants; and that this giving him the advantage of the first discovery, he had darted ahead with all his speed, until arrested at an unexpected moment by the six warriors, whose guns and voices had been heard by the party.