lay for both
of us, and we'll take the field, man after man. I tell you what, Munro,
in our parts the chickens are always hatched with spurs, and the
children born with their eye-teeth. We know something, too, about
whipping our weight in wild-cats; and until the last governor of our
state had all the bears killed, because they were getting civilized, we
could wrestle with 'em man for man, and throw seven out of ten."

CHAPTER XVI.

CONSPIRACY--WARNING.

Ralph was not permitted to return to the village that night--his sturdy
friend Forrester insisting upon his occupying with him the little lodge
of his own, resting on the borders of the settlement, and almost buried
in the forest. Here they conversed until a late hour, previous to
retiring; the woodman entering more largely into his own history than he
had done before. He suffered painfully from the occurrences of the day:
detailed the manner in which he had been worked upon by Munro to take
part in the more fearful transaction with the guard--how the excitement
of the approaching conflict had defeated his capacities of thought, and
led him on to the commission of so great a part of the general offence.
Touching the initial affair with the squatters, he had no compunctious
scruples. That was all fair game in his mode of thinking, and even had
blood been spilled more freely than it was, he seemed to think he should
have had no remorse. But on the subject of the murder of the guard, for
so he himself called his crime, his feeling was so intensely agonizing
that Ralph, though as much shocked as himself at the events, found it
necessary to employ sedative language, and to forbear all manner of
rebuke.

At an early hour of the morning, they proceeding in company to the
village--Forrester having to complete certain arrangements prior to his
flight; which, by the advice of Colleton, he had at once determined
upon. Such, no doubt, was the determination of many among them not
having those resources, in a familiarity with crime and criminal
associations, which were common to Munro and Rivers.

The aspect of the village was somewhat varied from its wont. Its people
were not so far gone in familiarity with occurrences like those of the
preceding day, as to be utterly insensible to their consequences; and a
chill inertness pervaded all faces, and set at defiance every endeavor
on the part of the few who had led, to put the greater number in better
spirits, either with