With that, he stooped to gather up his skins, a proceeding that Stackpole, against whom the laugh was turned by this sally of Nathan’s, resisted by catching him by the nape of the neck, twirling him round, and making as if he really would have beaten him.

Even this the peaceful Nathan bore without anger or murmuring; but his patience fled, when Stackpole, turning to the little dog, which was bristling its back and growling, expressed a half inclination to take up its master’s quarrel, applied his foot to its ribs with a violence that sent it rolling some five or six yards down the hill, where it lay for a time yelping and whining with pain.

“Friend!” said Nathan, sternly, “thee is but a dog theeself, to harm the creature!  What will thee have with me?”

“A fight! a fight, I tell thee!” replied Captain Ralph, “till I teach thy leatherified conscience the new doctrines of Kentucky.”

“Fight thee I cannot and dare not,” said Nathan; and then added, much to the surprise of Forrester, who, sharing, his indignation at the brutality of his tormentor, had approached to drive the fellow off,—­“But if thee must have thee deserts, thee shall have them.—­Thee prides theeself upon thee courage and strength—­will thee adventure with me a friendly fall?”

“Hurrah for Nathan!” cried the young men, vastly delighted at his unwonted spirit, while Captain Ralph himself expressed his pleasure, by leaping into the air, crowing, and dashing off his hat, which he kicked down the hill with as much good will as he had previously bestowed upon the little dog.

“Off with your leather night-cap, and down with your rifle,” he cried, giving his own weapon into the hands of a looker-on, “and scrape some of the grease off your jacket; for, ’tarnal death to me, I shall give you the Virginny lock, fling you head-fo’most, and you’ll find yourself, in a twinkling, sticking fast right in the centre of the ’arth!”

“Thee may find theeself mistaken,” said Nathan, giving up his gun to one of the young men, but instead of rejecting his hat, pulling it down tight over his brows.  “There is locks taught among the mountains of Bedford that may be as good as them learned on the hills of Virginia.—­I am ready for thee.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried Ralph Stackpole, springing towards his man, and clapping his hands, one on Nathan’s left shoulder, the other on his right hip:  “Are you ready?”

“I am,” replied Nathan.

“Down, then, you go, war you a buffalo!” And with that the captain of the horse-thieves put forth his strength, which was very great, in an effort that appeared to Roland quite irresistible; though, as it happened, it scarce moved Nathan from his position.

“Thee is mistaken, friend!” he cried, exerting his strength in return, and with an effect that no one had anticipated.  By magic, as it seemed, the heels of the captain of the horse-thieves were suddenly seen flying in the air, his head aiming at the earth, upon which it as suddenly descended with the violence of a bomb-shell; and there it would doubtless have burrowed, like the aforesaid implement of destruction, had the soil been soft enough for the purpose, or exploded into a thousand fragments, had not the shell been double the thickness of an ordinary skull.