though nothing in Nathan's own
admissions could be found to sanction any belief save that they were the
results, partly of accident, and partly of sudden and irresistible
impulse.

At all events, it was plain that his warlike feats, however they might
at first have shocked his sense of propriety, now sat but lightly on
his conscience; and, indeed, since his confession at the Piankeshaw
camp, he ceased even to talk of them, perhaps resting upon that as an
all-sufficient explanation and apology. It is certain from that moment he
bore himself more freely and boldly, entered no protest whatever against
being called on to do his share of such fighting as might occur--a
stipulation made with such anxious forethought when he first consented
to accompany the lost travellers--nor betrayed any tenderness of
invective against the Indians, whom, having first spoken of them only as
"evil-minded poor Shawnee creatures," he now designated, conformably
to established usage among his neighbours of the Stations, as "thieves
and dogs," "bloody villains, and rapscallions;" all which expressions he
bestowed with as much ease and emphasis as if he had been accustomed to
use them all his life.

With this singular friend and companion Roland pursued his way through
the wilderness, committing life, and the hopes that were dearer than
life, to his sole guidance and protection; nor did anything happen to
shake his faith in either the zeal or ability of Nathan to conduct to a
prosperous issue the cause he had so freely and disinterestedly espoused.

As they thridded the lonely forest-paths together, Nathan explained at
length the circumstances upon which he founded his hopes of success in
their project; and, in doing so, convinced the soldier, not only that his
sagacity was equal to the enterprise, but that his acquaintance with the
wilderness was by no means confined to the region south of the Ohio; the
northern countries, then wholly in the possession of the Indian tribes,
appearing to be just as well known to him, the Miami country in
particular, in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture. How this
knowledge had been obtained was not so evident; for, although he averred
he hunted the deer or trapped the beaver on either side the river, as
appeared to him most agreeable, it was hardly to be supposed he could
carry on such operations in the heart of the Indian nation. But it was
enough for Roland that the knowledge so essential to his own p