"And that is the very reason she must be kept away," said the stranger, with a look malignly expressive of self-approving cunning: "there must be no hope, no thought of security, no consciousness of sympathy, to make me more trouble than I have had already. She must know where she is, and what she is, a prisoner among wild savages: a little fright, a little despair, and the work is over. You understand me, eh? There is a way of bringing the devil himself to terms; and as for a woman, she is not much more unmanageable. One week of terrors, real and imagined, does the work; and then, my jolly Jack, you have won your wages." "And I have desarved 'em," said Doe, striking his fist upon the table with violence; "for I have made myself jist the d----dest rascal that was ever made of a white man. Lying, and cheating, and perjuring, and murdering--it's nothing better nor murder, that of giving up the younker that never did harm to me or mine, to the Piankeshaws,--for they'll burn him, they will, d--n 'em! there's no two ways about it.--There's what I've done for you; and if you were to give me had the plunder, I reckon 'twould do no more than indamnify me for my rascality. And so, here's the end on't;--you've made me a rascal, and you shall pay for it." "It is the only thing the world ever does pay for," said the stranger, with edifying coolness; "and so, don't be afflicted. To be a rascal is to be a man of sense,--provided you are a rascal in a sensible way,--that is, a profitable one." "Ay," said Doe, "that's the doctrine you have been preaching ever since I knowed you; and _you_ have made a fortun' by it. But as for me, though I've toed the track after your own leading, I'm jist as poor as ever, and ten times more despisable,--I am, d--n me; for I'm a white Injun, and there's nothing more despisable. But here's the case," he added, working himself into a rage,--"I won't be a rascla for nothing,--I'm sworn to it: and this is a job you must pay for to the full vally, or you're none the better on it." "It will make your fortune," said his companion in iniquity: "there was bad luck about us before; but all is now safe--The girl will make us secure." "I don't see into it a bit," said Doe, morosely: "you were secure enough without her. The story of the other gal you know of gave you the grab on the lands and vall'ables; and I don't see what's the good to come of this here other one, no how."