live Injun"--a sight
that some of them had never seen before. Their wonderment was much
excited to see how a red varmint could drink _its_ water from a tin
instead of needing to suck it up from a trough, like a horse; how _it_
could eat _its_ meat with a knife and fork, bite by bite, instead of
gulping it up whole, like a dog; and how _it_ could do many other things
in the civilized, human way, which they had supposed peculiar to "black
people and white folks." Supper ended, mine host filled and lighted his
own pipe, and blandly showing the whites of his eyes, offered it to his
captive guest. The captive guest, with a graceful acknowledgment,
accepted the pipe, and with grave decorum began smoking, sending out the
puffs at slow and regular intervals, and looking straight before him;
sometimes at the curling smoke, then, through the smoke, at the opposite
wall; then, through the wall--for so it seemed--at some object on the
other side of the Ohio River, miles away in the gathering shades of
evening. Once he turned his bright eyes full on the clump of shining
black faces at the door, and scanned them attentively, though seemingly
with as little consciousness of their living, personal presence as were
they but so many stuffed specimens of their kind piled up there for
exhibition. But glancing downward and spying three or four little
woolies peeping fearfully at him from between the legs of the larger
ones--the stride of the legs perceptibly widened "to give the little
fellows a chance"--then did the young brave discharge a puff one second
before its time, sending it with a force that carried it in a straight
line to the bowl of the pipe before it began to rise. But for this, you
would hardly have thought that the Indian had seen any thing that seemed
to him alive or human or funny.

"Cap'n Rennuls, stop yo' monkey-shines ober de red varmint in dar, an'
come out an' git up an' make us a speech," at length said one of the
ebony brotherhood at the door, promoting our hero on the spot, and
adding a still higher title to the illustrious list already coupled with
his name.

Chapter XIV.

HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED IN ORATORY.

Accordingly, the Fighting Nigger came forth, still bristling all over
with the trophies of victory and spoils of war--the three Indian rifles
now added to the rest. Mounting a low, wide poplar stump directly in
front of his cabin, he proceeded to give his colored brethren a
circumstantial acco