And here the worthy horse-thief, seeing that his exhortations produced no effect upon the apparently dying Edith, dropped upon his knees, and began to blubber and lament over her, as if overcome by his feelings, promising her a world of Indian scalps, and a whole Salt River full of Shawnee blood, if she would only look up and see how he went about it.

“Show your gratitude by actions, not by words,” said Roland, who, whatever his cause for disliking the zealous Ralph, was not unrejoiced at his presence, as that of a valuable auxiliary:  “rise up, and tell me, in the name of heaven, how you succeeded in reaching this place, and what hope there is of leaving it?”

But Ralph was too much afflicted by the wretched condition of Edith, whom his gratitude for the life she had bestowed had made the mistress paramount of his soul, to give much heed to any one but herself; and it was only by dint of hard questioning that Roland drew from him, little by little, an account of the causes which had kept him in the vicinity of the travellers, and finally brought him to the scene of combat.

It had been, it appeared, an eventful and unlucky day with the horse-thief, as well as the soldier.  Aside from his adventure on the beech-tree, enough in all truth to mark the day for him with a black stone, he had been peculiarly unfortunate with the horses to which he had so unceremoniously helped himself.  The gallant Briareus, after sundry trials of strength with his new master, had at last succeeded in throwing him from his back; and the two-year-old pony, after obeying him the whole day with the docility of a dog, even when the halter was round his neck, and carrying him in safety until within a few miles of Jackson’s Station, had attempted the same exploit, and succeeded, galloping off on the back track towards his home.  This second loss was the more intolerable, since Stackpole, having endured the penalty for stealing him, considered himself as having a legal, Lynch-like right to the animal, which no one could now dispute.  He therefore returned in pursuit of the pony, until night arrested his footsteps on the banks of the river, which, the waters still rising, he did not care to cross in the dark.  He had, therefore, built a fire by the road-side, intending to camp-out till morning.

“And it was your fire, then, that checked us?” cried Roland, at this part of the story,—­“it was your light we took for the watch-fire of Indians?”

“Injuns you may say,” quoth Stackpole, innocently, “for thar war a knot of ’em I seed sneaking over the ford; and jist as I was squinting a long aim at ’em, hoping I might smash two of ’em at alick, slam-bang goes a feller that had got behind me, ’tarnal death to him, and roused me out of my snuggery.  Well, sodger, then I jumps into the cane, and next into the timber; for I reckoned all Injun creation war atter me.  And so I sticks fast in a lick; and then to sumtotalise, I wallops down a rock, eend foremost, like a bull-toad: