There's spirit in you and some wise notions, but you want
help in the game. Besides, there's a bigger thing before you. So I took
steps to bring you here."
"You took a roundabout road," said I, by no means appeased.
"It had to be. D'you think I could come marching into James Town and
collogue with you in your counting-house? Now that you're here, you
have my sworn word that the Free Companions will never lay hand again
on your ventures. Will that content you?"
"It will," I said; "but you spoke of a bigger thing before me."
"Yes, and that's the price you are going to pay me for my goodwill.
It's what the lawyers call _consideratio_ for our bargain, and it's the
reason I brought you here. Tell me, Andrew, d'you ken a man Frew who
lives on the South Fork River?" "A North Ireland fellow, with a hatchet
face and a big scar? I saw him a year ago."
"It stuck in my mind that you had. And d'you mind the advice he gave
you?"
I remembered it very well, for it was Frew who had clinched my views on
the defencelessness of our West. "He spoke God's truth," I said, "but I
cannot get a Virginian to believe it."
"They'll believe in time," he said, "though maybe too late to save some
of their scalps. Come to this hillock, and I will show you something.
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