John Atkinson, or Jack, as they used to call me;
but now Abel Doe, for convenience sake," said the refugee, with great
composure; "and so, now, you can see into the whole matter. It was _me_
that had the keeping of the major's daughter that you knows of. Well,
I was an honest feller in them days, I was, captain, by G----!" repeated
the fellow with something that sounded like remorseful utterance, "and
jist as contented in my cabin on the mountain as the old major himself in
his big house at Felhallow. But Dick Braxley came, d--n him, and there
was an end of all honest doings: for Dick was high with the old major,
and the major was agin his brothers; and says Dick, says he, 'Put but
this little gal,'--meaning the major's daughter,--'out of the way and I'm
jist as good as the major's heir; and I'll make your fortun'"--

"Ay! and it was _he_ then, the villain himself," cried Roland, "who
devised this horrible iniquity, which, by innuendo at least, he charged
upon my father!--You are a rascal indeed! And you murdered the poor
child?"

"Murdered! No, rat it, there was no murdering in the case: it was jist
hiding in a hole, as you may call it. We burned down the wigwam, and made
on as if the gal was burned in it; and then I stumped off to the Injun
border, among them that didn't know me, and according to Dick's advice,
helped myself to another name, and jist passed off the gal for my own
daughter."

"Your own daughter!" cried Roland, starting half up, but being unable to
rise on account of his bonds: "the story then is true! and Telie Doe is
my uncle's child, the lost heiress?"

"Well, supposing she is?" said Atkinson, "I reckon you'd not be exactly
the man to help her to her rights?"

"Ay, by Heaven, but I would though!" said Roland, "if rights they be. If
my uncle, upon knowledge that she was still alive, thought fit to alter
his intentions with regard to Edith and myself, he would have found none
more ready to acknowledge the poor girl's claims than ourselves, none
more ready to befriend and assist her."

"Well! there's all the difference between being an honest feller and a
rascal!" muttered Atkinson, casting his eyes upon the fire, which he fell
to studying for a moment with great earnestness. Then starting up
hastily, and turning to the prisoner he exclaimed--

"There's not a better gal in the etarnal world! You don't know it,
captain; but that Telie, that poor critter that's afeard of her own
shadow, did run al