“Well, well,” said Doe’s associate, “this is idle talk.  We have won the victory, and must enjoy it.  I must see the prize.”

“What good can come of it?” demanded Doe, moodily:  “the gal’s half dead and whole crazy,—­or so Telie says.  And as for your gitting any good-will out of her, cuss me if I believe it.  And Telie says—­”

“That Telie will spoil all!  I told you to keep the girl away from her.”

“Well, and didn’t I act accordin’?  I told her I’d murder her, if she went near her agin—­a full-blooded, rale-grit rascal to talk so to my own daughter, an’t I?  But I should like to know where’s the good of keeping the gal from her, since it’s all she has for comfort?”

“And that is the very reason she must be kept away,” said the stranger, with a look malignly expressive of self-approving cunning:  “there must be no hope, no thought of security, no consciousness of sympathy, to make me more trouble than I have had already.  She must know where she is, and what she is, a prisoner among wild savages:  a little fright, a little despair, and the work is over.  You understand me, eh?  There is a way of bringing the devil himself to terms; and as for a woman, she is not much more unmanageable.  One week of terrors, real and imagined, does the work; and then, my jolly Jack, you have won your wages.”

“And I have desarved ’em,” said Doe, striking his fist upon the table with violence; “for I have made myself jist the d——­dest rascal that was ever made of a white man.  Lying, and cheating, and perjuring, and murdering—­it’s nothing better nor murder, that of giving up the younker that never did harm to me or mine, to the Piankeshaws,—­for they’ll burn him, they will, d—­n ’em! there’s no two ways about it.—­There’s what I’ve done for you; and if you were to give me had the plunder, I reckon ’twould do no more than indamnify me for my rascality.  And so, here’s the end on’t;—­you’ve made me a rascal, and you shall pay for it.”

“It is the only thing the world ever does pay for,” said the stranger, with edifying coolness; “and so, don’t be afflicted.  To be a rascal is to be a man of sense,—­provided you are a rascal in a sensible way,—­that is, a profitable one.”

“Ay,” said Doe, “that’s the doctrine you have been preaching ever since I knowed you; and you have made a fortun’ by it.  But as for me, though I’ve toed the track after your own leading, I’m jist as poor as ever, and ten times more despisable,—­I am, d—­n me; for I’m a white Injun, and there’s nothing more despisable.  But here’s the case,” he added, working himself into a rage,—­“I won’t be a rascla for nothing,—­I’m sworn to it:  and this is a job you must pay for to the full vally, or you’re none the better on it.”

“It will make your fortune,” said his companion in iniquity:  “there was bad luck about us before; but all is now safe—­The girl will make us secure.”

“I don’t see into it a bit,” said Doe, morosely:  “you were secure enough without her.  The story of the other gal you know of gave you the grab on the lands and vall’ables; and I don’t see what’s the good to come of this here other one, no how.”