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24 go free. I thought to see Master Vernham use better wisdom, but ’tis well known that  he has much respect for Preacher Eliot, and  doubtless hearkened to his intercessions. If this Eliot chooses to waste his time teaching  the gospel to the savages, ’tis his own affair,  perchance, but ’twould be well for him to refrain from interfering with affairs outside his  villages. Mark my words, Master David: if trouble comes with Philip’s Indians these  wastrel hypocrites of Eliot’s will be murdering us in our beds so soon as they get the  word.”

“That I do not believe,” answered David stoutly.

“An your scalp dangles some day from the belt of one of these same Praying Indians you will believe,” replied Obid dryly.

Nathan Lindall returned in the afternoon from Boston and heard David’s account of  his talk with Joe Tanopet in silence. Nathan Lindall was a large man, well over six feet  in height and broad of shoulder, and David  promised to equal him for size ere he stopped  his growth. A quiet man he was, with calm brown eyes deeply set and a grave countenance, who could be stern when occasion  warranted, but who was at heart, as David