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fingers). I said, "Ya-gan kill all white man, soldier man and every man kill Ya-gan." He scowled a look of daring defiance, and turned on his heel with an air of ineffable contempt. During the latter part of this conference, he held a beautifully tapered and exquisitely pointed spear, grasped like a stiletto, about fourteen inches from the point, while the shaft lay over his shoulder, with a seeming carelessness. He evidently suspected treachery, and was on his guard against it, taking care not to let my men press on him too closely, and keeping some of the natives between myself and them.
Nothing short of an overpowering force (which I did not possess), or a cold-blooded deliberate treachery (of which I was incapable), would have enabled me to have secured him as he then stood: it was, perhaps, my duty to have attempted his arrest, dead or alive; however, consider the circumstances of my situation, I had gone among them unarmed, little thinking that the "Wallace" of the tribe was there; he did not relinquish his spear till he was certain of my pacific intentions; and there were ten of them, and only three of us, myself rather invalided.
I despatched a letter instantly to Mr. Bull, as a magistrate, apprising him of Ya-gan's vicinity. He went off for the soldiers; and in the meantime this proclaimed and dangerous outlaw, with a price on his head, and threats (not idle) on his tongue, in sight of the military quarters, and of a magistrate's residence, hemmed in between three or four settlements, and almost in presence of a large force of armed men, was suffered to escape unmolested. The truth is, every one wishes him taken, but no one likes to be the captor. How could any person, unless a professed blood-hunter, spring upon a man in cold blood, and lead him to the death? How could any one who has a heart fire upon him treacherously from a secure ambush, though he be an unfeeling and reckless savage? There is something in his daring which one is forced to admire.
