“Hy’ar it is,” said the man, flinging out his hand with angry energy; “I wants to ax of you, as a sodger, for I’ve heer’d you’re of the reggelar sarvice, whether it’s a wiser and more Christian affa’r, when thar’s Injuns in the land a murdering of your neighbours’ wives and children, and all the settlement’s in a screech and a cry, to send an able-bodied man to fight them; or to tote him off, a day’s journey thar and back ag’in, to track a road that a blind man on a blind horse could travel, without axing questions of anybody?  Thar’s my question,” he added, somewhat vehemently; “and now let’s have a sodger’s answer!”

“My good friend,” said Roland, a little offended, and yet more embarrassed, by the interrogatory, “none can tell better than yourself how much, or how little occasion I may have for a guide.  Your question, therefore, I leave you to answer yourself.  If you think your duty calls you to abandon a woman in the wild woods to such guidance as one wholly unacquainted with them can give, you can depart as soon as you think fit; for I cannot—­”

The guide gave him no time to finish the sentence.  “You’re right, strannger,” he cried; “thar is your road, as plain as the way up a hickory, b’aring to a camp of old friends and acquaintances,—­and hy’ar is mine, running right slap among fighting Injuns!”

And with that he turned his horse’s head, and flourishing his right hand, armed with the ever constant rifle, above his own, and uttering a whoop expressive of the wild pleasure he felt at being released from his ignoble duty, he dashed across the pool, and galloped in a moment out of sight, leaving Roland and his party confounded at the desertion.

“An outlandish niggur’!” muttered old Emperor, on whom this expression of the guide had produced no very favourable effect; “guess the gemman white man is a niggur himself, and a rogue, and a potater, or whatsomever you call ’em!  Leab a lady and a gemman lost in the woods, and neither take ’em on nor take ’em back!—­lor-a-massy!”

To this half-soliloquised expression of indignation the soldier felt inclined to add a few bitter invectives of his own; but Edith treating the matter lightly, and affecting to be better pleased at the rude man’s absence than she had been with his company, he abated his own wrath, and acknowledged that the desertion afforded the best proof of the safety of the road; since he could not believe that the fellow, with all his roughness and inhumanity, would have been so base as to leave them while really surrounded by difficulties.  He remembered enough of Bruce’s description of the road, which he had taken care should be minute and exact, to feel persuaded that the principal obstructions were now over, and that, as the guide had said, there was no possibility of wandering from the path.  They had already travelled nearly half the distance to the river, and to accomplish the remainder, they had yet four hours of day-light.  He saw no reason