like hand, a change came over his appearance. The bold and
manly look which he had for a moment assumed, was exchanged for an air of
embarrassment and almost timidity, such as marked his visage of old, at
the Station. He hesitated, paused, looked at the bodies again, and then
at Roland; and finally muttered aloud, though with doubting accents,--

"Thee is a man of war, friend,--a man of war and a soldier! and thee
fights Injuns even as the young men of Kentucky fights them; and thee may
think it but right and proper, as they do, in such case made and
provided, to take the scalps off the heads of these same dead vagabonds!
Truly, friend, if thee is of that mind, truly, I won't oppose thee!"

"Their scalps? _I_ scalp them!" cried Boland, with a soldier's disgust;
"I am no butcher: I leave them to the bears and wolves, which the
villains in their natures so strongly resembled. I will kill Indians
wherever I can; but no scalping, Nathan, no scalping from me!"

"Truly, it is just as thee thinks proper," Nathan mumbled out; and
without further remark he strode into the wood, following the path which
the Piankeshaws had travelled the preceding evening, until, with Roland,
he reached the spot where had happened the catastrophe of the keg,--a
place but a few hundred paces distant from the glade. Along the whole way
he had betrayed symptoms of dissatisfaction and uneasiness, for which
Roland could not account; and now, having arrived at this spot, he came
to a pause, and revealed the source of his trouble.

"Do thee sit down here and rest thee weary limbs, friend," he said.
"Truly, I have left two Injun guns lying open to the day; and, truly, it
doth afflict me to think so; for if other Injuns should chance upon this
place, they must needs find them, and perhaps use them in killing poor
white persons. Truly, I will hide them in a hollow tree, and return to
thee in a minute."

With these words, he immediately retraced his path, leaving Roland to
wonder and speculate at leisure over the singular intermixture of humane
and ferocious elements of which his character seemed compounded. But the
speculation was not long indulged; in a few moments Nathan's footsteps
were heard ringing along the arched path, and he again made his
appearance, but looking a new man. His gait was fierce and confident, his
countenance bold and expressive of satisfaction. "Things should never be
done by halves," he muttered, but more as if speaking to his ow