"Let her, if she dare!" the squatter muttered in his teeth.

"Abiram; they know my temper too well to play the prank with me!" "Look for yourself! if the curtain is not lifted, I can see no better than the owl by daylight." Ishmael struck the breach of his rifle violently on the earth, and shouted in a voice that might easily have been heard by Ellen, had not her attention still continued rapt on the object which so unaccountably attracted her eyes in the distance.
"Nell!" continued the squatter, "away with you, fool! will you bring down punishment on your own head?
Why, Nell!--she has forgotten her native speech; let us see if she can understand another language." Ishmael threw his rifle to his shoulder, and at the next moment it was pointed upward at the summit of the rock.

Before time was given for a word of remonstrance, it had sent forth its contents, in its usual streak of bright flame.

Ellen started like the frightened chamois, and uttering a piercing scream, she darted into the tent, with a swiftness that left it uncertain whether terror or actual injury had been the penalty of her offence.
The action of the squatter was too sudden and unexpected to admit of prevention, but the instant it was done, his sons manifested, in an unequivocal manner, the temper with which they witnessed the desperate measure.

Angry and fierce glances were interchanged, and a murmur of disapprobation was uttered by the whole, in common.
"What has Ellen done, father," said Asa, with a degree of spirit, which was the more striking from being unusual, "that she should be shot at like a straggling deer, or a hungry wolf ?" "Mischief," deliberately returned the squatter; but with a cool expression of defiance in his eye that showed how little he was moved by the ill-concealed humour of his children.