"Where did you fall in with the Tuscarora, Bob?" suddenly asked the captain, as much to bring up another subject, as through curiosity. "The fellow had been so long away, I began to think we should never see him again.
"He tells me, sir, he has been on a war path, somewhere out among the western savages. It seems these Indians fight among themselves, from time to time, and Nick has been trying to keep his hand in. I found him down at Canajoharie, and took him for a guide, though he had the honesty to own he was on the point of coming over here, had I not engaged him."
"I'll answer for it he didn't tell you _that_, until you had paid him for the job."
"Why, to own the truth, he did not, sir. He pretended something about owing money in the village, and got his pay in advance. I learned his intentions only when we were within a few miles of the Hut."
"I'm glad to find, Bob, that you give the place its proper name. How gloriously Sir Hugh Willoughby, Bart., of The _Hut_, Tryon county, New York, would sound, Woods!--Did Nick boast of the scalps he has taken from the Carthaginians?"
"He lays claim to three, I believe, though I have seen none of his trophies."
"The Roman hero!--Yet, I have known Nick rather a dangerous warrior. He was out against us, in some of my earliest service, and our acquaintance was made by my saving his life from the bayonet of one of my own grenadiers. I thought the fellow remembered the act for some years; but, in the end, I believe I flogged all the gratitude out of him. His motives, now, are concentrated in the little island of Santa Cruz."
"Here he is, father," said Maud, stretching her light, flexible form out of a window. "Mike and the Indian are seated at the lower spring, with a jug between them, and appear to be in a deep conversation."
"Ay, I remember on their first acquaintance, that Mike mistook _Saucy_ Nick, for _Old_ Nick. The Indian was indignant for a while, at being mistaken for the Evil Spirit, but the worthies soon found a bond of union between them, and, before six months, he and the Irishman became sworn friends. It is said whenever two human beings love a common principle, that it never fails to make them firm allies."
"And what was the principle, in this case, captain Willoughby?" inquired the chaplain, with curiosity.