the outlaw, unmoved by his presence, and with a degree of cavalier
indifference which he had never ventured to manifest to that dangerous
personage before.

"Why, how now, Chub--do you not see me?" was the first inquiry of
Rivers.

"Can the owl see?--Chub is an owl--he can't see in the moonlight."

"Well, but, Chub--why do you call yourself an owl? You don't want to see
me, boy, do you?"

"Chub wants to see nobody but his mother--there's Miss Lucy now--why
don't you let me see her? she talks jest like Chub's mother."

"Why, you dog, didn't you help to steal her away? Have you forgotten how
you pulled away the stones? I should have you whipped for it, sir--do
you know that I can whip--don't the hickories grow here?"

"Yes, so Chub's mother said--but you can't whip Chub. Chub laughs--he
laughs at all your whips. _That_ for your hickories. Ha! ha! ha! Chub
don't mind the hickories--you can't catch Chub, to whip him with your
hickories. Try now, if you can. Try--" and as he spoke he darted along
with a rickety, waddling motion, half earnest in his flight, yet
seemingly, partly with the desire to provoke pursuit. Something
irritated with what was so unusual in the habit of the boy, and what he
conceived only so much impertinence, the outlaw turned the horse's head
down the hill after him, but, as he soon perceived, without any chance
of overtaking him in so broken a region. The urchin all the while, as if
encouraged by the evident hopelessness of the chase on the part of the
pursuer, screeched out volley after volley of defiance and
laughter--breaking out at intervals into speeches which he thought most
like to annoy and irritate.

"Ha, ha, ha! Chub don't mind your hickories--Chub's fingers are long--he
will pull away all the stones of your house, and then you will have to
live in the tree-top."

But on a sudden his tune was changed, as Rivers, half-irritated by the
pertinacity of the dwarf, pull out a pistol, and directed it at his
head. In a moment, the old influence was predominant, and in undisguised
terror he cried out--

"Now don't--don't, Mr. Guy--don't you shoot Chub--Chub won't laugh
again--he won't pull away the stones--he won't."

The outlaw now laughed himself at the terror which he had inspired, and
beckoning the boy near him, he proceeded, if possible, to persuade him
into a feeling of amity. There was a strange temper in him with
reference to this outcast. His deformity--his desolate condition--hi