"They declare they'll seize our skins," cried another
ambiguously,--then, conscious of this, he sought to amend the
matter,--"Not the hides we wear,"--this was no better, for they were all
arrayed in hides, save Richard Mivane. "Not the hides that we were born
in, but our deerhides, our peltry,--they'll seize the pack-train from
Blue Lick, and they declare they'll call on the commandant of Fort
Prince George to oppose its passing with the king's troops."

An appalled silence fell on the quadrangle,--save for the fresh notes of
a mockingbird, perching in jaunty guise on the tower of the blockhouse,
above which the rainbow glowed in the radiant splendors of a misty amber
sky.

"The king's troops? Would the commandant respond?" anxiously speculated
one of the settlers.

The little handful of pioneers, with their main possessions in the fate
of the pack-train, looked at one another in dismay.

"And tell me, friend Feather-pate, why did it seem good to you to shoot
a wolf in the midst of a herd of cattle?" demanded Richard Mivane.

Ralph Emsden, bewildered by the results of this untoward chance, and the
further catastrophe shadowed forth in the threatened seizure of the
train, rallied with all his faculties at the note of scorn from this
quarter.

"Sir, I did not shoot the wolf among the cattle. There was not a horn
nor a hoof to be seen when I fired."