He was tanned almost to the darkness of an Indian.
"You tell me, Senor Wyatt," said Don Francisco Alvarez, the leader of the Spanish band, "that the new settlers in Kaintock[A] have twice driven off the allied tribes, and that, if they are left alone another year or two, they will go down so deep in the soil that they can never be uprooted.
Is it not so ?" "It is so," replied Braxton Wyatt, the renegade.

"The tribes have failed twice in a great effort.

Every man among these settlers is a daring and skillful fighter, and many of the boys--and many of the women, too.

But if white troops and cannon are sent against them their forts must fall." The Spaniard was idly whipping the grass stems with a little switch.

Now he narrowed his metallic, blue eyes, and gazed directly into those of Braxton Wyatt.
"And you, Senor Wyatt ?" he said, speaking his slow, precise English.
"Nothing premeditated is done without a motive.