“And arn’t I the ramping tiger of the Rolling Fork?” cried Captain Ralph; “and can’t I eat him, hoss, dog, dirty jacket, and all?  Hold me by the tail while I devour him!”

With that, he executed two or three escapades, demivoltes curvets, and other antics of a truly equine character, an galloping up to the amazed Nathan, saluted him with a neigh so shrill and hostile that even White Dobbin pricked up his ears, and betrayed other symptoms of alarm.

“Surely, Colonel,” said Roland, “you will not allow that mad ruffian to assail the poor man?”

“Oh,” said Bruce, “Ralph won’t hurt him; he’s never vicious, except among Injuns and horses.  He’s only for skearing the old feller.”

“And who,” said Forrester, “may the old fellow be? and why do you call him Bloody Nathan?”

“We call him Bloody Nathan,” replied the commander, “because he’s the only man in all Kentucky that won’t fight! and thar’s the way he beats us all hollow.  Lord, Captain, you’d hardly believe it, but he’s nothing more than a poor Pennsylvany Quaker; and what brought him out to Kentucky, whar thar’s nar another creatur’ of his tribe, thar’s no knowing.  Some say he war dishonest, and so had to cut loose from Pennsylvany; but I never heerd of his stealing anything in Kentucky; I reckon thar’s too much of the chicken about him for that.  Some say he is hunting rich lands; which war like enough for anybody that war not so poor and lazy.  And some say his wits are unsettled, and I hold that that’s the truth of the creatur’; for he does nothing but go wandering up and down the country, now h’yar and now thar, hunting for meat and skins; and that’s pretty much the way he makes a living:  and once I see’d the creatur’ have a fit—­a right up-and-down touch of the falling-sickness, with his mouth all of a foam.  Thar’s them that’s good-natur’d that calls him Wandering Nathan, because of his being h’yar and thar, and every whar.  He don’t seem much afear’d of the Injuns; but, they say, the red brutes never disturbs the Pennsylvany Quakers.  Howsomever, he makes himself useful; for sometimes he finds Injun sign whar thar’s no Injuns thought of, and so he gives information; but he always does it, as he says, to save bloodshed, not to bring on a fight.  He comes to me once, thar’s more than three years ago, and instead of saying, ’Cunnel, thar’s twenty Injuns lying on the road at the lower ford of Salt, whar you may nab them,’ says he, says he, ’Friend Thomas, thee must keep the people from going nigh the ford, for thar’s Injuns thar that will hurt them;’ and then he takes himself off; whilst I rides down thar with twenty-five men and exterminates them, killing six, and driving the others the Lord knows whar.  He has had but a hard time of it amongst us, poor creatur’; for it used to make us wrathy to find thar war so little fight in him that he wouldn’t so much as kill a murdering Injun.  I took his gun from him once; for why, he wouldn’t attend muster when I had enrolled him.  But I pitied the brute; for he war poor, and thar war but little corn in his cabin, and nothing to shoot meat with; and so I gave it back, and told him to take his own ways for an old fool.”