He has seen the last of his four-footed creatures, or I am but little skilled in Sioux cunning." "Had we not better join the party of Ishmael ?" said the bee-hunter.
"There will be a regular fight about this matter, or the old fellow has suddenly grown chicken-hearted." "No--no--no," hastily exclaimed Ellen.
She was stopped by the trapper, who laid his hand gently on her mouth, as he answered-- "Hist--hist!--the sound of voices might bring us into danger.

Is your friend," he added, turning to Paul, "a man of spirit enough ?" "Don't call the squatter a friend of mine!" interrupted the youth.

"I never yet harboured with one who could not show hand and zeal for the land which fed him." "Well--well.

Let it then be acquaintance.

Is he a man to maintain his own, stoutly by dint of powder and lead ?" "His own! ay, and that which is not his own, too! Can you tell me, old trapper, who held the rifle that did the deed for the sheriff's deputy, that thought to rout the unlawful settlers who had gathered nigh the Buffaloe lick in old Kentucky?
I had lined a beautiful swarm that very day into the hollow of a dead beech, and there lay the people's officer at its roots, with a hole directly through the 'grace of God;' which he carried in his jacket pocket covering his heart, as if he thought a bit of sheepskin was a breastplate against a squatter's bullet! Now, Ellen, you needn't be troubled for it never strictly was brought home to him; and there were fifty others who had pitched in that neighbourhood with just the same authority from the law." The poor girl shuddered, struggling powerfully to suppress the sigh which arose in spite of her efforts, as if from the very bottom of her heart.
Thoroughly satisfied that he understood the character of the emigrants, by the short but comprehensive description conveyed in Paul's reply, the old man raised no further question concerning the readiness of Ishmael to revenge his wrongs, but rather followed the train of thought which was suggested to his experience, by the occasion.
"Each one knows the ties which bind him to his fellow-creatures best," he answered.