The White Squaw. Майн Рид

      “Not quite,” said Carrol, pausing in the chorus part of his ditty; “he’d best remain here till his people come. They won’t be long now, and the stay will give him time to get right smart.”

      “What was it that vexed my father, Cris?”

      “Well, I don’t know ’cept he’s took somethin’ that’s disagreed with him. He do seem riled considerable.”

      “But, Cris, are you really off to-morrow?”

      “By sunrise,” answered Carrol.

      “Which way are you going?”

      Cris looked slily at his questioner before answering.

      “I don’t know for sure whether it’ll be along the bay, or across the big swamp. The deer are gettin’ scarce near the settlement, and I have to go further to find ’em. That’s all along of civilisation.”

      “If you go by the swamp you might do me a service,” said Warren.

      “Might I?” Then, after a thoughtful pause, the back woodsman continued—“Well, you see, Warren, it won’t be by the swamp. I’ve made my mind up now, and I’m goin’ along the bay.”

      Warren said, “All right; no matter.”

      Then, with a word of explanation, parted from Cris, and proceeded to find Nelatu.

      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.”