e roared, leaping from the passage floor to the pile of ruins before
the door of the hovel (where Emperor yet lay ensconced, and whither
Roland followed him), as if in utter defiance of the foemen whom he
hailed with such opprobrious epithets,--"h'yar you bald head,
smoke-dried, punkin-eating red-skins! you half-niggurs! you 'coon-whelps!
you snakes! you varmints! you raggamuffins what goes about licking
women and children, and scar'ring-anngelliferous madam! git up and
show your scalp-locks; for 'tarnal death to me, I'm the man to take
'em--cock-a-doodle-doo!"

And the valiant horse-thief concluded his warlike defiance with such a
crow as might have struck consternation to the heart not merely of the
best game-cock in Kentucky, but of the bird of Jove itself. Great was the
excitement it produced among the warriors. A furious hubbub was heard
to arise among them, followed by many wrathful voices exclaiming in
broken English, with eager haste, "Know him dah! cuss' rascal! Cappin
Stackpole!--steal Injun hoss!" And the' "steal Injun hoss!" iterated and
reiterated by a dozen voices, and always with the most iracund emphasis,
enabled Roland to form a proper conception of the sense in which his
enemies held that offence, as well as of the great merits and wide-spread
fame of his new ally, whose mere voice had thrown the red-men into such a
ferment.

But it was not with words alone they vented their displeasure.
Rifle-shots and execrations were discharged together against the
notorious enemy of their pinfolds; who nothing daunted, and nothing
loath, let fly his own "speechifier," as he denominated his rifle, in
return, accompanying the salute with divers yells and maledictions, in
which latter he showed himself, to say the truth, infinitely superior
to his antagonists. He would even, so great and fervent was his desire to
fight the battles of his benefactress to advantage, have retained his
exposed stand on the pile of ruins, daring every bullet, had not Roland
dragged him down by main force, and compelled him to seek a shelter like
the rest, from which, however, he carried on the war, loading and firing
his piece with wonderful rapidity, and yelling and roaring all the time
with triumphant fury, as if reckoning upon every shot to bring down an
enemy.

It was not many minutes, however, before Roland began to fear that
the fatality which had marked all his relations with the intrepid
horse-thief, had not yet lost its influen