clost. They ain't got no heart er no mercy. How they kin grind up a
captive, like wheat in the millstuns, an' laugh, an' whoop at the sight
o' his blood! Er turn him into smoke an' ashes while they look on an'
laugh--by mighty!--like he were singin' a funny song. They'd be men
an' women only they ain't got the works in 'em. Suthin' missin'. By
the hide an' horns o' the devil! I ain't got no kind o' patience with
them mush hearts who say that Ameriky belongs to the noble red man an'
that the whites have no right to bargain fer his land. Gol ding their
pictur's! Ye might as well say that we hain't no right in the woods
'cause a lot o' bears an' painters got there fust, which I ain't
a-sayin' but what bears an' painters has their rights."

Mr. Binkus paused again to put another coal on his pipe. Then he
listened a moment and looked up at the rocks above their heads, for
they were camped in a cave at the mouth of which they had built a small
fire, in a deep gorge. Presently he went on:

"I found a heap o' Injuns at Swegache--Mohawks, Senekys, Onandogs an'
Algonks. They had been swappin' presents an' speeches with the French.
Just a little while afore they had had a bellerin' match with us 'bout
love an' friendship. Then sudden-like they tuk it in their heads that
the French had a sharper hatchet than the English. I were skeered, but
when I see that they was nobody drunk, I pushed right into the big
village an' asked fer the old Senecky chief Bear Face--knowin' he were
thar--an' said I had a letter from the Big Father. They tuk me to him.

"I give him a chain o' wampum an' then read the letter from Sir Bill.
It offered the Six Nations more land an' a fort, an' a regiment to
defend 'em. Then he give me a lot o' hedge-hog quills sewed on to
buckskin an' says he: