to follow, to log the whole matter accurately. God
bless me - God bless me! A traitor do you say, and ready to sell his country,
and to a bloody Frenchman too?«
    »To sell any thing - country, soul, body, Mabel and all our scalps; and no
ways particular, I'll engage, as to the purchaser. The countrymen of Capt.
Flinty-heart, here, were the paymasters this time.«
    »Just like 'em; ever ready to buy, when they can't thrash, and to run when
they can do neither.«
    Mons. Sanglier lifted his cap with ironical gravity, and acknowledged the
compliment with an expression of polite contempt that was altogether lost on its
insensible subject. But Pathfinder had too much native courtesy, and was far too
just-minded, to allow the attack to go unnoticed -
    »Well - well -« he interposed, »to my mind there is no great difference
atween an Englishman and a Frenchman, a'ter all. They talk different tongues,
and live under different kings I will allow, but both are human, and feel like
human beings, when there is occasion for it. If a Frenchman is sometimes skeary,
so is an Englishman; and as for running away, why a man will now and then do it,
as well as a horse, let him come of what people he may.«
    Capt. Flinty-heart, as Pathfinder called him, made another obeisance, but
this time the smile was friendly, and not ironical, for he felt that the
intention was good, whatever might have been the mode of expressing it. Too
philosophical, however, to heed what a man like Cap might say, or think, he
finished his breakfast without allowing his attention to be again diverted from
that important pursuit.
    »My business, here, was principally with the Quarter Master,« Cap continued,
as soon as he had done regarding the Frenchman's pantomine; »the serjeant must
be near his end, and I have thought he might wish to say something to his
successor in authority, before he finally departed. It is too late, it would
seem, and, as you say, Pathfinder, the Lieutenant has truly gone before.«
    »That he has, though on a different path. As for authority, I suppose the
corporal has now a right to command what's left of the 55th, though a small and
worried, not to say frightened, party it is. But, if any thing needs to be done