--rum, chiefly, I believe. Gentlemen like you come into this
country to deal, replevin, or what not, and we say to you all, 'Don't
tread on us--that is all.' We shall not look into your parcels, nor lie
awake of nights to hear alarms; but harm Isaac and Jacob Cannon one
ha'pence and _levari facias, fi. fa.!_"

"And fee-fo-fum," ejaculated Jimmy, cheerfully; "I've hearn it before."

Looking again with some curiosity at his companion, Phoebus saw that
he was not beyond fifty years of age, of a spare, lofty figure--at least
six feet four high--sitting straight and graceful as an Indian, his
clothes well-tailored, his countenance and features both stern and
refined; every feature perfected, and all keen without being hard or
angular--and yet Jimmy did not like him. There seemed to have been made
a commodore or a general--some one designed for deeds of chivalry and
great philanthropy; and yet around and between the dancing eyes spider
lines were drawn, as if the fine high brain of Jacob Cannon had put
aside matters that matched it and meddled with nothing that ascended
higher above the world than the long white bridge of his nose. His
sentiments apparently fell no further towards his heart than that; his
brain belonged to the bridge of his nose.

"Another Meshach Milburn, by smoke!" concluded Jimmy.

After a little pause Phoebus inquired into the character of the people
in this apparently new region of country.

"The quotient of much misplanting and lawyering is the lands on the
Nanticoke," spoke the gray-nosed Apollo; "the piece of country directly
before us, in the rear of my neighbor Johnson's cross-roads, was an old
Indian reservation for seventy years, and so were three thousand acres
to our right, on Broad Creek. The Indian is a bad factor to civilize his
white neighbors; he does not know the luxury of the law, that grand
contrivance to make the equation between the business man and the herd.
Ha, ha!"

Mr. Cannon chuckled as if he, at least, appreciated the law, and turned
the fine horsy bridge of his nose, all gray with dancing eyelight,
enjoyingly upon Mr. Phoebus.

"The Indians were long imposed upon, and when they went away, at the
brink of the Revolutionary War, they left a demoralized white race; and
others who moved in upon the deserted lands of the Nanticokes were, if
possible, more Indian than the Indians. This peninsula never produced a
great Indian, but when Ebenezer Johnson settled on Broad Creek it