"It's jist that, majjor; and little good, or little har-r-m, did it do.
Joel, and his poor'atin's, blazed away at 'em, as if they had been so
many Christians--and 'twould have done yer heart good to have heard the
serjeant belabour them with hard wor-r-ds, for their throuble. There's
none of the poor'atin' family in the serjeant, who's a mighty man wid
his tongue!"

"And the savages returned the volley--which explains the distant
discharge I heard."

"Anybody can see, majjor, that ye're yer father's son, and a souldier
bor-r-n. Och! who would of t'ought of that, but one bred and bor-r-n in
the army? Yes; the savages sent back as good as they got, which was
jist not'in' at all, seem' that no one is har-r-m'd."

"And the single piece that followed--there was one discharge, by
itself?"

Mike opened his mouth with a grin that might have put either of the
Plinys to shame, it being rather a favourite theory with the
descendants of the puritans--or "poor'atin's," as the county Leitrim-
man called Joel and his set--that the Irishman was more than a match
for any son of Ham at the Knoll, in the way of capacity about this
portion of the human countenance. The major saw that there was a good
deal of self-felicitation in the expression of Mike's visage, and he
demanded an explanation in more direct terms.

"'Twas I did it, majjor, and 'twas as well fired a piece as ye've ever
hear-r-d in the king's sarvice. Divil bur-r-n me, if I lets Joel get
any such advantage over me, as to have a whole battle to himself. No--
no--as soon as I smelt his Yankee powther, and could get my own musket
cock'd, and pointed out of the forthifications, I lets 'em have it, as
if it had been so much breakfast ready cooked to their hands. 'Twas
well pointed, too; for I'm not the man to shoot into a fri'nd's
countenance."

"And you broke the orders for a reason no better than the fact that
Strides had broken them before?"

"Divil a bit, majjor--Joel had _broken_ the orders, ye see and
that settled the matter. The thing that is once broken is broken, and
wor-r-ds can't mend it, any more than for bearin' to fire a gun will
mend it."

By dint of cross-questioning, Robert Willoughby finally succeeded in
getting something like an outline of the truth from Mike. The simple
facts were, that the Indians had taken possession of their old bivouac,
as soon as the day dawned, and had commenced their preparations for
breakfast, when Joel, the miller, and a f