 at pacific leisure, Varney had considered the recent war between these tribes an admirable vent for gunpowder and its profitable sale; and since the savages must always be killing, it was manifestly best for all concerned that they should kill each other. He could not sufficiently deride the happy illustration which Governor Glen had given them (in his fatuity, Varney thought) of the values of peace and concord. In the presence of the two delegations the mediating Governor had taken an arrow and shown them with what ease it could be broken; then how impossible he found it to break a quiverful of arrows, thus demonstrating the strength in union. Varney argued that the Indians would readily perceive a further application of the principle and turn it to account, combining against the colonists. In the same spirit he animadverted upon a monopoly from which he was excluded in common with the traders in general, and which had been granted to a mercantile company seeking to establish posts among the Choctaws. The enterprise, although favored by the government, obviously because, undertaken on a scale of phenomenal magnitude, it promised to dislodge the French and their long-established trade among the Choctaws, and bring that powerful tribe to a British allegiance, had finally proved a failure; and with a bitter joy in this fact he alternately contemned and pitied the government, because it could not wrest this valuable opportunity from the iron grasp of the "Mississippi Louisianians." He had, too, a censorious word for the French commercially—called them "peddlers," celebrated their deceitful wiles, underrated the quality of their cloths, and inconsistently berated them for their low prices, finding a logical parity in all these matters in the tenets of their religion, which they had so vainly and so zealously sought to instill into the unreceptive hearts of the unimpressionable Choctaw.[4]

With the plethora of interest involved in these subjects, Varney grew oblivious of the theme that had earlier occupied his mind. It recurred no more to his thoughts until several days had passed. He then chanced to be occupied with his new goods in his cavern. It was illumined only from above; there was a trap-door in the floor of the trading-house, and thence a pale tempered light drifted down, scarcely convenient, but sufficient for his purposes. Once he noticed that a shadow flickered across it. He experienced a momentary surprise, for he had left no one in the building, and the outer door being locked, he imagined it could not be forced without noise enough to rouse him. Again the shadow flickered across the trap-door; then ensued a complete eclipse of the
