"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Damon, with another loud crack, and rolling a huge quid of tobacco to the opposite side of his mouth, "they might as well mount the trees and preach to the 'coons and tree-frogs; one of your real psalm-singers mout tree a coon at it, but hang me if he can ever put the pluck of a white man under a yellow jacket. Catch a weasel asleep or a fox at a foot race. I rather suspicion, stranger, that I've seen more Injins than your missionaries, and I'll tell you the way to tame 'em;--slit their windpipes and hamstring 'em." "Perhaps you are an enemy to religion, or prejudiced against the missionaries?" "No! no! stranger, no! I likes religion well enough of a Sunday; but hang me if I should not die of laughin to see 'em layin it down to the redskins. I'd as soon think of going into my horse stable and preachin to the dumb brutes. Old Pete here knows more now than many an Injin, and he's got more soul than some Yankees that mout be named; but come, stranger, here's a public house, let's go in and cut the phlegm." "Agreed," said Lamar, "but it must be at my expense." "Well," said Damon, "we'll not quarrel about that;" and turning to Victor, "Stranger, won't you join us in a glass of tight?" "No! I thank you," said Chevillere, "but I will look on while you and my friend drink to the better acquaintance of us all." After the parties had refreshed themselves and their horses, and remounted, the conversation was resumed. "Well now," said the Kentuckian, addressing Victor, "I wish I may be contwisted if you ain't one of the queerest men, to come from the Carolinas, I have clapped eyes on this many a day. You don't chaw tobacco, and you don't drink nothin; smash my apple-cart if I can see into it." "I am one of those that don't believe in the happy effects of either brandy or tobacco," replied Chevillere. "Then you are off the trail for once in your life, stranger, for I take tobacco to be one of God's mercies to the poor. Whether it came by a rigular dispensation of providence (as our parson used to say), or in a natural way, I can't tell; but hang me, if when I gets a quid of the real Kentuck twist or Maryland kite-foot into my mouth, if I ain't as proud a man as the grand Turk himself. It drives away the solemncholies, and makes a fellow feel so good-natured, and so comfortable; it turns the shillings in his pocket into dollars, and his wrath into fun and deviltry. Let them talk about tobacco as they choose among the fine gals, and at their theatres, and balls, and cotillions, and all them sort of things; but let one of 'em git twenty miles deep into a Kentuck forest, and then see if a chew of the stuff ain't good for company and comfort." "But you did not tell me," resumed Lamar, "whether you had ever shot at a white man?"