good; and I’ll stand it.  But as for being off, why I don’t mean it noway.  I’ve got a bargain to strike with you, and it is jist a matter to take the tiger-cat out of you,—­it is, d—­n it:  and when you’ve heard it, you’ll be in no sich hurry to get rid of me.  But, afore we begin, I’ve jist got a matter to ax you:  and that is,—­how the h——­ you cleared the old Piankeshaw and his young uns?”

“If you have anything to propose to me,” said Roland, smothering his wrath as well as he could, though scarce hoping assistance or comfort of any kind from the man who had done him so much injury, “propose it, and be brief, and trouble me with no questions.”

“Well now,” said Doe, “a civil question might as well have a civil answer!  If you killed the old feller and the young-uns, you needn’t be ashamed of it; for cuss me, I think all the better of you for it; for it’s not every feller can kill three Injuns that has him in the tugs, by no means no-how.  But, I reckon, the ramscallions took to the liquor?  (Injuns will be Injuns, there’s no two ways about it!) and you riz on ’em, and so paid ’em up scot and lot, according to their desarvings?  You couldn’t have done a better thing to make me beholden:  for, you see, I had the giving of you up to ’em, and I felt bad,—­I did, d—­n me, for I knew the butchers would burn you, if they got you to the Wabash—­I did, captain, and I had bad thoughts about it.  But it was a cussed mad notion of you, following us, it was, there’s no denying!  Howsomever, I won’t talk of that.  I jist want to ax you where you picked up that Injun-looking feller that was lugging off the gal, and what his natur’?  The Injuns say, he’s a conjuror:  now I never heerd of conjurors among the whites, like as among the Injuns, afore I cut loose from ’em, and I’m cur’ous on the subject!—­I jist ax you a civil question, and I don’t mean no harm in it.  There’s nobody can make the feller out; and, as for Ralph Stackpole, blast him, he says he never seed the crittur afore in his life!”

“If you would have me answer your question,” said Roland, in whom Doe’s discourse was beginning to stir up many a former feeling, “you must first answer mine.  This person you speak of,—­what is to be his fate?”

“Why, burning, I reckon:  but that’s according as he pleases the old Vulture:  for, if he can find out what never an Injun Medicine has been able to do, it may be, the old chief will feed him up and make him his conjuror.  They say, he’s conjuring with the crittur now.”

“And Stackpole, what will they do with him?”

“Burn him, sartin!  They’re jist waiting till the warriors come in from the Licking, where, you must know, they have taken a hundred scalps, or so, at one grab:  and then the feller will roast beyond all mention.”

“And I, too,” said the Virginian, with such calmness us he could, “I, too, am to meet the same fate?”

“Most ondoubtedly,” said Doe, with an ominous nod of assent.  “There’s them among us that speak well of you, as having heart enough to be made an Injun:  but there’s them that have sworn you shall burn; and burn you must!—­That is, onless—­” But he was interrupted by Roland, exclaiming hurriedly,—­