abide by the ways of its
owners."

"Owners!" echoed the squatter, "I am as rightful an owner of the land
I stand on, as any governor in the States! Can you tell me, stranger,
where the law or the reason, is to be found, which says that one man
shall have a section, or a town, or perhaps a county to his use, and
another have to beg for earth to make his grave in? This is not nature,
and I deny that it is law. That is, your legal law."

"I cannot say that you are wrong," returned the trapper, whose opinions
on this important topic, though drawn from very different premises, were
in singular accordance with those of his companion, "and I have often
thought and said as much, when and where I have believed my voice could
be heard. But your beasts are stolen by them who claim to be masters of
all they find in the deserts."

"They had better not dispute that matter with a man who knows better,"
said the other in a portentous voice, though it seemed deep and sluggish
as he who spoke.

"I call myself a fair trader, and one who gives to his chaps as good as
he receives. You saw the Indians?"

"I did--they held me a prisoner, while they stole into your camp."

"It would have been more like a white man and a Christian, to have let
me known as much in better season," retorted Ishmael, casting another
ominous sidelong glance at the trapper, as if still meditating evil. "I
am not much given to call every man, I fall in with, cousin, but colour
should be something, when Christians meet in such a place as this. But
what is done, is done, and cannot be mended, by words. Come out of your
ambush, boys; here is no one but the old man: he has eaten of my bread,
and should be our friend; though there is such good reason to suspect
him of harbouring with our enemies."

The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did
not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the
explanations and denials to which he had just listened. The summons of
the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate accession to their party.
Four or five of his sons made their appearance from beneath as many
covers, where they had been posted under the impression that the figures
they had seen, on the swell of the prairie, were a part of the Sioux
band. As each man approached, and dropped his rifle into the hollow
of his arm, he cast an indolent but enquiring glance at the stranger,
though neither of them expressed the least curi