"Strannger," said Ralph, "if you war to ax me from now till doomsday about the why and the wharfo' I couldn't make you more nor one answer: I come to holp anngelliferous madam out of the hands of the abbregynes, according to my sworn duty as her natteral-born slave and redemptioner! I war hard on the track, when the villians here caught me." "What!" cried Roland, his heart for the first time warming towards the despised horse-thief, while even Nathan surveyed him with something like complacency, "you are following my poor cousin then? You were not brought here a prisoner?" "If I war, I wish I may be shot," said Ralph: "it warn't a mile back on the ridge, whar the Injuns snapped me; 'causa how, I jist bang'd away at a deer, and jist then up jumps the rascals on me, afo' I had loaded old speechifier; and so they nabb'd me! And so, sodger, h'yar's the way of it all: You see, d'you see, as soon as Tom Bruce comes to, so as to be able to hold the hoss himself--" "What," said Roland, "was he not mortally wounded?" "He ar'n't much hurt to speak on, for all of his looking so much like coffin-meat at the first jump: it war a kind of narvousness come over him that men feels when they gets the thwack of a bullet among the narves. And so, you see, d'you see, says I, 'Tom Bruce, do you stick to the critter, and he'll holp you out of the skrimmage;' and, says I, 'I'll take the back-track, and foller atter madam.' And, says he, says he--But, 'tarnal death to me, let's scalp these h'yar dead villians, and do the talking atter! Did you see the licking I gin this here feller? It war a reggular fair knock-down-and-drag-out, and I licked him! Thar's all sorts of ways of killing Injuns; but, I reckon, I'm the only gentleman in all Kentuck as ever took a scalp in the way of natur'! Hurrah for Kentuck! and hurrah for Ralph Stackpole, for he ar' a screamer!"