re in such fighting as might occur: "trouble yourself no
longer; we will take care to avoid a contest."

"Truly," said Nathan, "that may not be as thee chooses, the Injuns being
all around thee."

"If a rencontre should be inevitable," said Roland, with a smile,
mingling grim contempt of Nathan's pusillanimity with secret satisfaction
at the thought of being thus able to secure the safety of his kinswoman,
"all that I shall expect of you will be to decamp with the females,
whilst we three, Emperor, Pardon Dodge, and myself, cover your retreat:
we can, at least, check the assailants, if we die for it!"

This resolute speech was echoed by each of the other combatants, the
negro exclaiming, though with no very valiant utterance, "Yes, massa! no
mistake in ole Emperor;--will die for missie and massa,"--while Pardon,
who was fast relapsing into the desperation that had given him courage on
a former occasion, cried out, with direful emphasis, "If there's no
dodging the critturs, then there a'n't; and if I must fight, then I
_must_; and them that takes my scalp must gin the worth on't, or it a'n't
no matter!"

"Truly," said Nathan, who listened to these several outpourings of spirit
with much complacency, "I am a man of peace and amity, according to my
conscience; but if others are men of wrath and battle, according to
theirs, I will not take it upon me to censure them,--nay, not even if
they should feel themselves called upon by hard necessity to shed the
blood of their Injun fellow-creatures,--who, it must be confessed, if we
should stumble on the same, will do their best to make that necessity as
strong as possible. But now let us away, and see what help there is for
us; though whither to go, and what to do, there being Injuns before, and
Injuns behind, and Injuns all around, truly, truly, it doth perplex me."

And so, indeed, it seemed; for Nathan straightway fell into a fit of
musing, shaking his head, and tapping his finger contemplatively on the
stock of that rifle, terrible only to the animals that furnished him
subsistence, and all the while in such apparent abstraction, that he took
no notice of a suggestion made by Roland,--namely, that he should lead
the way to the deserted Ford, where, as the soldier said, there was every
reason to believe there were no Indians,--but continued to argue the
difficulty in his own mind, interrupting the debate only to ask counsel
where there seemed the least probability of obtain