fellow, too, that looked as though he might have fou't old Sattan
himself?"

"It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough; and so good luck to him!" cried the
commander: "thar's a harricane coming!"

"Who is the Jibbenainosay?" demanded Forrester.

"Who?" cried Tom Bruce: "Why, Nick,--Nick of the Woods."

"And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods?"

"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar, strannger, you're
too hard for me. Some think one thing, and some another; but thar's many
reckon he's the devil."

"And his mark, that you were talking of in such mysterious terms,--what
is that?"

"Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him,--a knife-cut, or
a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a cross. That's the way the
Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing. It has been a whole year
now since we h'ard of him."

"Captain," said the elder Bruce, "you don't seem to understand the afta'r
altogether; but if you were to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay till
doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has told already. You must
know, thar's a creatur' of some sort or other that ranges the woods round
about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us like, and
killing all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come in his way,