“Am I a fool not to know a burnt-wood Teton?” demanded the trapper, with a steadiness that did great credit to his nerves. “Go; it is dark, and you do not see that my head is grey!”

The Indian now appeared convinced that he had adopted too shallow an artifice to deceive one so practised as the man he addressed, and he was deliberating what fiction he should next invent, in order to obtain his real object, when a slight commotion among the band put an end at once to all his schemes. Casting his eyes behind him, as if fearful of a speedy interruption, he said, in tones much less pretending than those he had first resorted to—

“Give Weucha the milk of the Long-Knives, and he will sing your name in the ears of the great men of his tribe.”

“Go,” repeated the trapper, motioning him away, with strong disgust. “Your young men are speaking of Mahtoree. My words are for the ears of a chief.”

The savage cast a look at the other, which, notwithstanding the dim light, was sufficiently indicative of implacable hostility. He then stole away among his fellows, anxious to conceal the counterfeit he had attempted to practise, no less than the treachery he had contemplated against a fair division of the spoils, from the man named by the trapper, whom he now also knew to be approaching, by the manner in which his name passed from one to another, in the band. He had hardly disappeared before a warrior of powerful frame advanced out of the dark circle, and placed himself before the captives, with that high and proud bearing for which a distinguished Indian chief is ever so remarkable. He was followed by all the party, who arranged themselves around his person, in a deep and respectful silence.

“The earth is very large,” the chief commenced, after a pause of that true dignity which his counterfeit had so miserably affected; “why can the children of my great white father never find room on it?”

“Some among them have heard that their friends in the prairies are in want of many things,” returned the trapper; “and they have come to see if it be true. Some want, in their turns, what the red men are willing to sell, and they come to make their friends rich, with powder and blankets.”

“Do traders cross the big river with empty hands?”

“Our hands are empty because your young men thought we were tired, and they have lightened us of our load. They were mistaken; I am old, but I am still strong.”

“It cannot be. Your load has fallen in the prairies. Show my young men the place, that they may pick it up before the Pawnees find it.”

“The path to the spot is crooked, and it is night. The hour is come for sleep,” said the trapper, with perfect composure. “Bid your warriors go over yonder hill; there is water and there is wood; let them light their fires and sleep with warm feet. When the sun comes again I will speak to you.”

A low murmur, but one that was clearly indicative of dissatisfaction, passed among the attentive listeners, and served to inform the old man that he had not been sufficiently wary in proposing a measure that he intended should notify the travellers in the brake of the presence of their dangerous neighbours. Mahtoree, however, without betraying, in the slightest degree, the excitement which was so strongly exhibited by his companions, continued the discourse in the same lofty manner as before.

“I know that my friend is rich,” he said; “that he has many warriors not far off, and that horses are plentier with him, than dogs among the red-skins.”

“You see my warriors, and my horses.”