out
of the ashes with his forefinger and twiddled it up to his pipe bowl.
In the army he was known as "old Solomon Binkus," not by reason of his
age, for he was only about thirty-eight, but as a mark of deference.
Those who followed him in the bush had a faith in his wisdom that was
childlike. "I had had my feet in a pair o' sieves walkin' the white
sea a fortnight," he went on. "The dry water were six foot on the
level, er mebbe more, an' some o' the waves up to the tree-tops, an'
nobody with me but this 'ere ol' Marier Jane [his rifle] the hull trip
to the Swegache country. Gol' ding my pictur'! It seemed as if the
wind were a-tryin' fer to rub it off the slate. It were a pesky wind
that kep' a-cuffin' me an' whistlin' in the briers on my face an'
crackin' my coat-tails. I were lonesome--lonesomer'n a he-bear--an'
the cold grabbin' holt o' all ends o' me so as I had to stop an' argue
'bout whar my bound'ry-lines was located like I were York State. Cat's
blood an' gun-powder! I had to kick an' scratch to keep my nose an'
toes from gittin'--brittle."

At this point, Solomon Binkus paused to give his words a chance "to
sink in." The silence which followed was broken only by the crack of
burning faggots and the sound of the night wind in the tall pines above
the gorge. Before Mr. Binkus resumes his narrative, which, one might
know by the tilt of his head and the look of his wide open, right eye,
would soon happen, the historian seizes the opportunity of finishing
his introduction. He had been the best scout in the army of Sir
Jeffrey Amherst. As a small boy he had been captured by the Senecas
and held in the tribe a year and two months. Early in the French and
Indian War, he had been caught by Algonquins and tied to a tree and
tortured by hatchet throwers until rescued by a French captain. After
that his opinion of Indians had been, probably, a bit colored by
prejudice. Still later he had been a harpooner in a whale boat, and in
his young manhood, one of those who had escaped the infamous massacre
at Fort William Henry when English forces, having been captured and
disarmed, were turned loose and set upon by the savages. He was a
tall, brawny, broad-shouldered, homely-faced man of thirty-eight with a
Roman nose and a prominent chin underscored by a short sandy throat
beard. Some of the adventures had put their mark upon his weathered
face, shaven generally once a week above the chin. The top of his left