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From his point of perspective he saw himself an outcast from society, forever to be a shady skulker along the ragged edge of respectability; a denizen des trois-quartz de monde, that pathetic spheroid lying between the haut and the demi, whose inhabitants envy each of their neighbours, and are scorned by both.
These men would fire to kill on any skulker near the camp. They would take no needless hazard of being surprised by a band of stray Indians. But the night would befriend her. She believed she could do what she had in mind and easily get away to the shelter of the hill creases before they could kill or capture her. A shadowy dog on the outskirt of the camp rose and barked.
"If you ever dare use that word before me again, I'll horsewhip you. Go to Henry de Spain's face, you skulker, and say that if you dare." "Put down that quirt, Nan," yelled her uncle. "I won't put it down," she exclaimed defiantly. "And he will get a good lashing with it if he says one more word about Henry de Spain." "Put down that quirt, I tell you," thundered her uncle. She whirled.
"There are others who might look at the matter differently," he said. "I am going to ask you a question which I know is unnecessary, but I must have your answer to take away with me. If you had known all the time that your husband, instead of being a skulker, as you thought him, was really doing splendid work for his country, you would not have listened to me for one moment, would you?
Twenty shillings was the reward paid for information leading to his apprehension as a straggler or a skulker, and it was largely on the strength of such informations, and often under the personal guidance of such detestable informers, that the gang went a-hunting. Apart from greed of gain, the motive most commonly underlying informations was either jealousy or spite.
At night it? is not quite so bad, for then the hooting of a vagrant owl, or it may be the distant howl of a prowling timber wolf, that gray skulker of the pine lands, is apt to break the monotony; but even in the midst of summer there is lacking the hum of insects and the bustle of woods life at best one hears the weird call of the whip-poor-will, called by the Indians, the "wish-a-wish," or if near a marsh the croaking of gigantic bullfrogs.
Just at that moment I observed some one curled up, and apparently hiding himself under the bow of the barge, between the boat and the booms. 'Hillo! I said, 'who are you? What are you doing there, you skulker? Why are you not at your station? 'I am not skulking, said the poor fellow, the furrows in whose bronzed and weatherbeaten cheek were running down with tears.
It was a golden rule, one perchance followed by many of our leaders, to make each day some expedition afield before the sun had reached its meridian. On the whole one was happier without deep dug-outs and safer, too, for to become a skulker was equivalent to death.
Just at that moment I observed some one curled up, and apparently hiding himself under the bow of the barge, between the boat and the booms. "Hillo!" I said, "who are you? What are you doing here, you skulker? Why are you not at your station?" "I am not skulking, sir," said the poor fellow, the furrows in whose bronzed and weather-beaten cheek were running down with tears.
And so, when Simmy Dodge walked in upon him one day, expecting to find a beaten, discouraged skulker, he was confronted by a sun-browned, bare- armed, bright-eyed warrior whose smile was that of the man who never laughs,—the grim smile of him who thinks.
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