l risks, and play all manner of fool's tricks, to save
you from this identical same captivation; and the night you was sleeping
at Bruce's fort, and we waiting for you at the ford, she cried, and
begged, and prayed that I would do you no more mischief; and, cuss her,
she threatened to tell you and Bruce, there, the whole affair of the
ambush; till I scared her with my tomahawk, like a d----d rascal as I am
(but there's nothing will fetch her round but fear of murdering); and so
swore her to keep silence. And then, captain, her running away after you
in the woods,--why, it was jist to circumvent us,--to lead you to the
t'other old road, and so save you; it was, captain, and she owned it: and
if you'd a' taken to her leading, as she axed you, she'd 'a' got you out
of the snarl altogether. Howsomever, captain," he continued, after making
those admissions, which solved all the enigmas of Telie's conduct, "I
won't lie in this matter no-how. The gal is no gal of the major's, but
my own flesh and blood: the major's little critter sickened on the
border, and died off in less than a year; and so there was all our
rascally burning and lying for nothing; for, if we had waited a while,
the poor thing would have died of her own accord. Well, captain, I'm
making a long story about nothing: but the short of it is, I didn't make
a bit of a fortun' at all, but fell into troubles; and the end was, I
turned Injun, jist as you see me; and a feller there, Tom Bruce, took to
my little gal out of charity; and so she was bred up a beggar's brat,
with everybody a jeering of her, because of her d----d rascally father.
And, you see, this made a wolf of me; for I couldn't bring her among the
Injuns, to marry her to a cussed niggur of a savage,--no, captain, I
couldn't; for she's my own natteral flesh and blood, and, captain, I love
her! And so I goes back to Virginny, to see what Braxley could do for
her; and there, d----n him, he puts me up to a new rascality; which was
nothing less than setting up my gal for the major's daughter, and making
her a great heiress, and marrying of her. Howsomever, this wouldn't do,
this marrying; for, first, Dick Braxley was a bigger rascal than myself,
and it was agin my conscience to give him the gal, who was a good gal,
deserving of an honest husband; and, next the feller was mad after young
madam, and there was no telling how soon he might p'ison my gal, to
marry the other. And so we couldn't fix the thing then to