had once hung his "battered shield," his lance, and
"uncontrolled crest."

Nevertheless, the warlike teamster was not without embarrassment.
Muttering something about the necessity of "looking after his stock,"
he achieved a hesitating bow, backed awkwardly out of the door, and
receiving from the conquering hands of the young girl his weapons again,
was obliged to carry them somewhat ingloriously in his hands across
the road, and put them on the wagon seat, where, in company with the
culinary articles, they seemed to lose their distinctively aggressive
character. Here, although his cheek was still flushed from his peaceful
encounter, his voice regained some of its hoarse severity as he drove
the oxen from the muddy pool into which they had luxuriantly wandered,
and brought their fodder from the wagon. Later, as the sun was setting,
he lit a corn-cob pipe, and somewhat ostentatiously strolled down the
road, with a furtive eye lingering upon the still open door of the
farmhouse. Presently two angular figures appeared from it, the farmer
and his wife, intent on barter.

These he received with his previous gloomy preoccupation, and a slight
variation of the story he had told their daughter. It is possible
that his suggestive indifference piqued and heightened the bargaining
instincts of the woman, for she not only bought the skillet, but
purchased a clock and a roll of carpeting. Still more, in some effusion
of rustic courtesy, she extended an invitation to him to sup with them,
which he declined and accepted in the same embarrassed breath, returning
the proffered hospitality by confidentially showing them a couple of
dried scalps, presumably of Indian origin. It was in the same moment
of human weakness that he answered their polite query as to "what they
might call him," by intimating that his name was "Red Jim,"--a title of
achievement by which he was generally known, which for the present must
suffice them. But during the repast that followed this was shortened to
"Mister Jim," and even familiarly by the elders to plain "Jim." Only
the young girl habitually used the formal prefix in return for the "Miss
Phoebe" that he called her.

With three such sympathetic and unexperienced auditors the gloomy
embarrassment of Red Jim was soon dissipated, although it could hardly
be said that he was generally communicative. Dark tales of Indian
warfare, of night attacks and wild stampedes, in which he had always
taken a prominent p