running from the Tuckasege Towns. With
them gals to hender us we ain't a-going to be in no fettle for a
skimper-scamper race with a fresh wheen o' the redskins. Therefore and
wherefore, says I, make them chopping-knives o' your'n cut and come
again, even to the dividing erpart of soul and marrer."

Dick laughed, and, speaking for both of us, said between his teeth that
we were not like to be over-merciful.

But now the old wolf of the border gave us a glimpse of an unsuspected
side of him, taking Jennifer sharply to task and reading him a homily on
the sin of vengeance for vengeance's sake. In this harangue he evinced
a most astonishing tongue-grasp of Scripture, and for a good half-hour
the air was thick with texts. And to cap the climax, when the sermon
paused he laid his pipe aside, doffed his cap, and went upon his knees
to pour forth such a militant prayer as brought my father's stories of
the grim old fighting Roundheads most vividly to mind.

Here, being as good a place as any, I may say frankly that I never fully
understood this side of Ephraim Yeates. Like all the hardy borderers, he
was a fighter by instinct and inclination; and I can bear him witness
that when he smote the "Amalekites," as he would call them--red skin or
red coat--he smote them hip and thigh, and was as ruthless as that
British Captain Turnbull who slew the wounded. Yet withal, on the very
edge of battle, or mayhap fair in the midst of it, he was like to fall
upon his knees to pray most fervently; though, as I have hinted, his
prayers were like his blows--of the biting sort, full of Scriptural
anathema upon the enemy.

Richard Jennifer, carelessly profane as all men were in that most
godless day, would say 'twas the old borderer's way of swearing; that
since he left out the oaths in common speech,--as, truly, he did,--he
would fetch up the arrears and wipe out the score in one fell blast upon
his knees. Be this as it may, he was a good man and a true, as I have
said; and his warlike supplication that our blades should be as the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon in the coming onfall was no whit out of
place.

It wanted yet a full hour of midnight when Richard began again to plead
piteously for instant action. Yeates thought it still over-early; but
when Jennifer pressed him hard the old borderer left the casting vote to
me.

"What say ye, Cap'n John? Your'n will be the next oldest head, and I
reckon it hain't been turned plumb foolish ram