As soon as he was out of sight, Carrol's behaviour would have furnished a comic artist a capital subject for a sketch. He chuckled, winked his eyes, wagged his head, rubbed his hands, and seemed to shake all over with suppressed merriment. "A pair of the artfullest cusses I ever comed across. Darn my pictur if the young 'un ain't most too good. War I goin' by the swamp, 'cos then I might do him a service? No, no, Mister Warren, this coon ain't to be made a cat's paw of by you nor your father neyther. I ain't a goin' to mix myself up in either of your scrapes, leastways, not if I knows it; nor Nelatu shan't if I can help it. I don't let him stir till his fellow Injuns come, and, may-be, that'll keep him out o' trouble. No, Master Warren, you must do yur own dirty work, and so must your father. Cris Carrol shan't help either o' you in that. If the young 'un don't mind what he's heard, altho' he made b'lieve he didn't, and his father don't mind what I told him, there'll be worse come of it." CHAPTER SIX. CROOKLEG. When young Rody took his departure from Carrol's hut, he went off in no very enviable mood. His interview with Nelatu, although of the briefest, had been as unproductive of results as that with the blunt old backwoodsman. The plain speaking indulged in by Carrol, and which he had overheard before entering the cabin, had annoyed him, while the oracular manner adopted by Cris in no way assuaged the feeling. The fact of the matter is that the old hunter had made a clear guess at the truth. Warren had a passion for Sansuta, the daughter of Oluski. Not a manly, loving passion, though. Her beauty had cast a spell upon him. Had his soul been pure, the spell would have worked its own cure. Out of the magic of her very simplicity would have arisen chaste love. But his heart was wicked, and its growth weeds. Hitherto the difference of race had shielded from harm the object of his admiration. He would have been ashamed to avow it in an honest way. Secretly, therefore, he had forged a false friendship for her brother, as a mask to conceal his base treachery. In the incident with which our tale opens, he had found a ready means of advancing his own interests by more closely cementing Nelatu's simple friendship, and moulding it to his will. We have said that Red Wolf, the would-be assassin, fell by the bullet of his rifle. With his hand upon the trigger, and in the very act of sending this wretch to his account, a thought had flashed across young Rody's mind, which made his aim more certain. Let us explain. Nelatu said that Red Wolf had spoken wicked words of Sansuta and of Warren. The very conjunction of their names supplied the calumny. Nelatu spoke truly; but what he did not know was, that the wretch who paid the forfeit of his life for his foul speech was only the dupe of Nelatu's own friend, Warren Rody.