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The latter comprised three cooks to the gangs, one of whom had lost a hand; a groom, three hog tenders, of whom one was ruptured, another "distempered" and the third a ten-year-old boy, and ten aged idlers including Quashy Prapra and Abba's Moll to mend pads, Yellow's Cuba and Peg's Nancy to tend the poultry house, and the rest to gather grass and hog feed.
Why, massa!" he continued, opening his eyes to their widest, "it's Manuela or her ghost!" It was indeed our little Indian heroine, walking alone in the shrubbery. She had not observed her late companions, who were partly concealed by bushes. "Quashy," said Lawrence, impressively, laying his hand on the negro's shoulder, "get out of the way.
At the same moment the old musket was prevailed on to go off, and Quashy delivered four pistol-shots in quick succession, with the result that several men and horses were wounded, and the entire body of Indians turned and fled in a state of frenzied surprise. They soon pulled up, however, and held a momentary consultation out of range.
"It would take a long time, Quashy, to answer these two questions fully; nevertheless, I think I could give you a roughish outline of a notion in about five minutes, if you'll promise not to stare so hard, and keep your mouth shut." The negro shut his eyes, expanded his mouth to its utmost in a silent laugh, and nodded his head acquiescently.
They are not, of course, all named so, but Quashy says if he had "fifty little bustin' gurls he'd regard 'em all as little Sooz'ns," and Susan retorts that if she had "five hundred little bad boys she'd call 'em all Quashys."
"And after that we couldn't, I think, do better than turn in." The fire had by that time burned low, and the gale was still raging around them, driving the snowdrift wildly against the hut, and sometimes giving the door so violent a shake as to startle poor Quashy out of sweet memories of Sooz'n into awful thoughts of the ghost that had not yet been laid.
She stopped abruptly, for a noise at the glass-door caused her to turn her eyes in that direction. It was Quashy, who stood there staring at them with all his eyes, and grinning at them with more than all his mouth to say nothing of his ears! "You black baboon!" shouted the colonel, when able to speak. "Oh, nebber mind me, kurnel," said Quashy, with a deprecatory air, "'skuse me.
"Aw quite a wemarkable cweature. A sort of aw long-legged curiosity of the Andes. Mad, I suppose, or drunk." These remarks were partly a soliloquy, partly addressed to a friend who had joined the sportsman, but they were overheard by Quashy, who, with the fire of a free negro and the enthusiasm of a faithful servant, said "No more mad or drunk dan you'self you whitefaced racoon!"
With much anxiety of expression, great demonstration of vigorous action, and many painful efforts of inventive genius, the two men tried to convey their wishes to that son of the soil, but all in vain. At last in desperation Quashy suddenly seized the jaguar-skin, threw it over his own shoulders, placed a long pole in Lawrence's hands, and said
"Don't fear to trust it," he said, "many a wild bull it has held, four times your size; but wait till Quashy and I get our feet well fixed we'll haul you up easily." "Have you made the end fast?" cried Lawrence, looking up and encountering the anxious gaze of the Indian maiden. "Yes, massa, all fast," answered Quashy, whose look of horror can be more easily imagined than described.
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