[From _Nick of the Woods_ (New York, 1853, revised edition)]
"What's the matter, Tom Bruce?" said the father, eyeing him with
surprise.
"Matter enough," responded the young giant, with a grin of mingled awe
and delight; "the Jibbenainosay is up again!"
"Whar?" cried the senior, eagerly,--"not in our limits?"
"No, by Jehosaphat!" replied Tom; "but nigh enough to be
neighborly,--on the north bank of Kentuck, whar he has left his mark
right in the middle of the road, as fresh as though it war but the
work of the morning!"
"And a clear mark, Tom?--no mistake in it?"
"Right to an iota!" said the young man;--"a reggelar cross on the
breast, and a good tomahawk dig right through the skull; and a
long-legg'd fellow, too, that looked as though he might have fou't old
Sattan himself!"
"It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough; and so good luck to him!" cried
the commander: "thar's a harricane coming!"
"Who is the Jibbenainosay?" demanded Forrester.
"Who?" cried Tom Bruce: "Why, Nick,--Nick of the Woods."
"And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods?"
"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar, stranger, you're
too hard for me. Some think one thing, and some another; but thar's
many reckon he's the devil."
"And his mark, that you were talking of in such mysterious
terms,--what is that?"
"Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him,--a knife-cut,
or a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a cross. That's the
way the Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing. It has been a
whole year now since we h'ard of him."
"Captain," said the elder Bruce, "you don't seem to understand the
affa'r altogether; but if you were to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay
till doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has told already. You
must know, thar's a creatur' of some sort or other that ranges the
woods round about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us
like, and killing all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come
in his way, besides scalping them and marking them with his mark. The
Injuns call him _Jibbenainosay_, or a word of that natur', which them
that know more about the Injun gabble that I do, say means the
_Spirit-that-walks_; and if we can believe any such lying devils as
Injuns (which I am loath to do, for the truth ar'nt in 'em), he is
neither man nor beast, but a great ghost or devil that knife cannot
harm nor bullet touch; and they have always had an idea that our fort
h'yar in partickelar, and the country round about, war under his
protection--many thanks to him, whether he be a devil or not; for that
war the reason the savages so soon left off a worrying of us."
"Is it possible," said Roland, "that any one can believe such an
absurd story?"
"Why not?" said Bruce, stoutly. "Thar's the Injuns themselves, Shawnees,
Hurons, Delawares, and all,--but partickelarly the Shawnees, for he
beats all creation a-killing of Shawnees,--that believe in him, and hold
him in such eternal dread, that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come
within ten miles of the station h'yar this three y'ar: because as how,
he haunts about our woods h'yar in partickelar, and kills 'em
wheresomever he catches 'em,--especially the Shawnees, as I said afore,
against which the creatur' has a most butchering spite; and there's them
among the other tribes that call him _Shawneewannaween_, or the Howl of
the Shawnees, because of his keeping them ever a howling. And thar's his
marks, captain,--what do you make of _that_? When you find an Injun
lying scalped and tomahawked, it stands to reason thar war something to
kill him."
"Ay, truly," said Forrester; "but I think you have human beings enough
to give the credit to, without referring it to a supernatural one."
"Strannger," said Big Tom Bruce the younger, with a sagacious nod, "when
you kill an Injun yourself, I reckon,--meaning no offense--you will be
willing to take all the honor that can come of it, without leaving it to
be scrambled after by others. Thar's no man 'arns a scalp in Kentucky,
without taking great pains to show it to his neighbors."
"And besides, captain," said the father, very gravely, "thar are men
among us who have seen the creatur'!"
"_That_," said Roland, who perceived his new friends were not well
pleased with his incredulity, "is an argument I can resist no longer."