as though he might have fou't old Sattan
himself?"

"It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough; and so good luck to him!" cried the
commander: "thar's a harricane coming!"

"Who is the Jibbenainosay?" demanded Forrester.

"Who?" cried Tom Bruce: "Why, Nick,--Nick of the Woods."

"And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods?"

"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar, strannger, you're
too hard for me. Some think one thing, and some another; but thar's many
reckon he's the devil."

"And his mark, that you were talking of in such mysterious terms,--what
is that?"

"Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him,--a knife-cut, or
a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a cross. That's the way the
Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing. It has been a whole year
now since we h'ard of him."

"Captain," said the elder Bruce, "you don't seem to understand the afta'r
altogether; but if you were to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay till
doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has told already. You must
know, thar's a creatur' of some sort or other that ranges the woods round
about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us like, and
killing all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come in his way,
besides scalping them and marking them with his mark. The Injuns call him
_Jibbenainosay_, or a word of that natur', which them that know more
about the Injun gabble than I do, say, means the _Spirit-that-walks_; and
if we can believe any such lying devils as Injuns (which I am loath to
do, for the truth ar'nt in 'em), he is neither man nor beast, but a great
ghost or devil that knife cannot harm nor bullet touch; and they have
always had an idea that our fort h'yar in partickelar, and the country
round about, war under his friendly protection--many thanks to him,
whether he be a devil or not; for that whar the reason the savages so
soon left off a worrying of us."

"Is it possible," said Roland, "that any one can believe such an absurd
story?"

"Why not?" said Bruce, stoutly. "Thar's the Injuns themselves, Shawnees,
Hurons, Delawares, and all,--but partickelarly the Shawnees, for he beats
all creation a-killing of Shawnees,--that believe in him, and hold him in
such eternal dread, that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come within ten
miles of the station h'yar this three y'ar; because as how, he haunts
about our woods h'yar in partickelar, and kills 'em wheresomever he
catche