to see 'em back,
ag'in; skin higher price dan ever."

"Nick, you're a cormorant, if there ever was one in this world! Here--
there is a dollar for you; the quit-rent is paid for this year, at
least. It ought to be for the last time."

"Let him go for all summer, cap'in. Yes, Nick wonderful commerant! no
such eye he got, among Oneida!"

Here the Tuscarora left the side of the stream, and came up on the
rock, shaking hands, good-humouredly, with Mrs. Willoughby, who rather
liked the knave; though she knew him to possess most of the vices of
his class.

"He very han'som beaver-dam," said Nick, sweeping his hand gracefully
over the view; "bye 'nd bye, he'll bring potatoe, and corn, and cider--
all 'e squaw want. Cap'in got good fort, too. Old soldier love fort;
like to live in him."

"The day may come, Nick, when that fort may serve us all a good turn,
out here in the wilderness," Mrs. Willoughby observed, in a somewhat
melancholy tone; for her tender thoughts naturally turned towards her
youthful and innocent daughters.

The Indian gazed at the house, with that fierce intentness which
sometimes glared, in a manner that had got to be, in its ordinary
aspects, dull and besotted. There was a startling intelligence in his
eye, at such moments; the feelings of youth and earlier habit, once
more asserting their power. Twenty years before, Nick had been foremost
on the war-path; and what was scarcely less honourable, among the
wisest around the council-fire. He was born a chief, and had made
himself an outcast from his tribe, more by the excess of ungovernable
passions, than from any act of base meanness.

"Cap'm tell Nick, now, what he mean by building such house, out here,
among ole beaver bones?" he said, sideling up nearer to his employer,
and gazing with some curiosity into his face.

"What do I mean, Nick?--Why I mean to have a place of safety to put the
heads of my wife and children in, at need. The road to Canada is not so
long, but a red-skin can make one pair of moccasins go over it. Then,
the Oneidas and Mohawks are not all children of heaven."

"No pale-face rogue, go about, I s'pose?" said Nick, sarcastically.

"Yes, there are men of that class, who are none the worse for being
locked out of one's house, at times. But, what do _you_ think of
the hut?--You know I call the place the 'Hut,' the Hutted Knoll."

"He hole plenty of beaver, if you cotch him!--But no water left, and he
all go away. Why you mak