to ruder and angrier remonstrances than usual; which having sought in
vain to avert, he sat down in despair, enduring all in silence, staring
from one to another of his tormentors with lack-lustre eyes, and playing
with the silken hair of his dog. The approach of the captain of the
Station procured him an interval of peace, which he, however, employed
only to communicate his troubles to the little cur, that, in his
perplexity, he had addressed pretty much as he would have addressed a
human friend and adviser: "Well, Peter," said he, abstractedly, and with
a heavy sigh, "what does _thee_ think of matters and things!" To which
question, the ridiculousness of which somewhat mollified the anger of the
young men, Peter replied by rubbing his nose against his master's hand,
and by walking a step or two down the hill, as if advising an instant
retreat from the inhospitable Station.

"Ay, Peter," muttered Nathan, "the sooner we go the better; for there are
none that makes us welcome. But nevertheless, Peter, we must have our
lead and our powder; and we must tell these poor people the news."

"And pray, Nathan," said Colonel Bruce, rousing him from his meditations,
"what may your news for the poor people be? I reckon it will be much
wiser to tell it to me than that 'ar brute dog. You have seen the
Jibbenainosay, perhaps, or his mark thar-away on the Kentucky?"

"Nay," said Nathan. "But there is news from the Injun towns of a great
gathering of Injuns with their men of war in the Miami villages, who
design, the evil creatures, marching into the district of Kentucky with a
greater army than was ever seen in the land before."

"Let them come, the brutes," said the Kentuckian, with a laugh of scorn;
"it will save us the trouble of hunting them up in their own towns."