Among the squatters there was but little time for deliberation, yet never were their leaders more seriously in doubt as to the course most proper for their adoption in the common danger.  They well knew the assigned duties of the guard, and felt their peril.  It was necessary for the common safety—­or, rather, the common spoil—­that something should be determined upon immediately.  They were now actually in arms, and could no longer, appearing individually and at privileged occupations, claim to be unobnoxious to the laws; and it need occasion no surprise in the reader, if, among a people of the class we have described, the measures chosen in the present exigency were of a character the most desperate and reckless.  Dexter, whose recent triumph gave him something in the way of a title to speak first, thus delivered himself:—­

“Well, Munro—­you may thank the devil and the Georgia guard for getting you out of that scrape.  You owe both of them more now than you ever calculated to owe them.  Had they not come in sight just at the lucky moment, my knife would have made mighty small work with your windpipe, I tell you—­it did lie so tempting beneath it.”

“Yes—­I thought myself a gone chick under that spur, George, and so I believe thought all about us; and when you put off the finishing stroke so suddenly, I took it for granted that you had seen the devil, or some other matter equally frightful,” was the reply of Munro, in a spirit and style equally unique and philosophical with that which preceded it.

“Why, it was something, though not the devil, bad enough for us in all conscience, as you know just as well as I. The Georgia guard won’t give much time for a move.”

“Bad enough, indeed, though I certainly ought not to complain of their appearance,” was the reply of Munro, whose recent escape seemed to run more in his mind than any other subject.  He proceeded:—­

“But this isn’t the first time I’ve had a chance so narrow for my neck; and more than once it has been said to me, that the man born for one fate can’t be killed by another; but when you had me down and your knife over me, I began to despair of my charm.”

“You should have double security for it now, Wat, and so keep your prayers till you see the cross timbers, and the twisted trouble.  There’s something more like business in hand now, and seeing that we shan’t be able to fight one another, as we intended, all that we can do now is to make friends as fast as possible, and prepare to fight somebody else.”

“You think just as I should in this matter, and that certainly is the wisest policy left us.  It’s a common cause we have to take care of, for I happen to know that Captain Fullam—­and this I take to be his troop—­has orders from the governor to see to us all, and clear the lands in no time.  The state, it appears, thinks the land quite too good for such as we, and takes this mode of telling us so.  Now, as I care very little about the state—­it has never done me any good, and I have always been able to take care of myself without it—­I feel just in the humor, if all parties are willing, to have a tug in the matter before I draw stakes.”