I have known the time when a few
Red-skins, shouting along the borders, could set the provinces in a
fever; and men were to be armed; and troops were to be called to aid
from a distant land; and prayers were said, and the women frighted,
and few slept in quiet, because the Iroquois were on the war-path, or
the accursed Mingo had the tomahawk in hand. How is it now? The
country sends out her ships to foreign lands, to wage their battles;
cannon are plentier than the rifle used to be, and trained soldiers
are never wanting, in tens of thousands, when need calls for their
services. Such is the difference atween a province and a state, my
men; and I, miserable and worn out as I seem, have lived to see it
all!"
"That you must have seen many a chopper skimming the cream from the
face of the earth, and many a settler getting the very honey of
nature, old trapper," said Paul, "no reasonable man can, or, for that
matter, shall doubt. But here is Ellen getting uneasy about the
Siouxes, and now you have opened your mind, so freely, concerning
these matters, if you will just put us on the line of our flight, the
swarm will make another move.
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