the skirts had long since been transferred to the cuffs and elbows, where they appeared in huge patches—­covered the upper part of his body; while the lower boasted a pair of buckskin breeches and leather wrappers, somewhat its junior in age, but its rival in mud and maculation.  An old round fur hat, intended originally for a boy, and only made to fit his head by being slit in sundry places at the bottom, thus leaving a dozen yawning gaps, through which, as through the chinks of a lattice, stole out as many stiff bunches of black hair, gave to the capital excrescence an air as ridiculous as it was truly uncouth; which was not a little increased by the absence on one side of the brim, and by a loose fragment of it hanging down on the other.  To give something martial to an appearance in other respects so outlandish and ludicrous, he had his rifle, and other usual equipments of a woodsman, including the knife and tomahawk, the first of which he carried in his hand, swinging it about at every moment, with a vigour and apparent carelessness well fitted to discompose a nervous person, had any such happened among his auditors.  As if there was not enough in his figure, visage, and attire to move the mirth of beholders, he added to his other attractions a variety of gestures and antics of the most extravagant kinds, dancing, leaping, and dodging about, clapping his hands and cracking his heels together, with the activity, restlessness, and, we may add, the grace, of a jumping-jack.  Such was the worthy, or unworthy, son of Salt River, a man wholly unknown to history, though not to local and traditionary fame, and much less to the then inhabitants of Bruce’s Station, to whom he related his news of the Jibbenainosay with that emphasis and importance of tone and manner which are most significantly expressed in the phrase of “laying down the law.”

As soon as he saw the commander of the station approaching, he cleared the throng around him by a skip and a hop, seized the colonel by the hand, and doing the same with the soldier, before Boland could repel him, as he would have done, exclaimed, “Glad to see you, cunnel;—­same to you, strannger—­What’s the news from Virginnie?  Strannger, my name’s Ralph Stackpole, and I’m a ring-tailed squealer!”

“Then, Mr. Ralph Stackpole, the ring-tailed squealer,” said Roland, disengaging his hand, “be so good as to pursue your business, without regarding or taking any notice of me.”

“’Tarnal death to me!” cried the captain of horse-thieves, indignant at the rebuff, “I’m a gentleman, and my name’s Fight!  Foot and hand, tooth and nail, claw and mudscraper, knife, gun, and tomahawk, or any other way you choose to take me, I’m your man!  Cock-a-doodle-doo!” And with that the gentleman jumped into the air, and flapped his wings, as much to the amusement of the provoker of his wrath as of any other person present.

“Come, Ralph,” said the commander of the Station, “whar’d’ you steal that brown mar’ thar?”—­a question whose abruptness somewhat quelled the ferment of the man’s fury, while it drew a roar of laughter from the lookers-on.