such facts as might have an influence on his future movements, the old man determined to invite him to a renewal of their conference. He therefore made a gesture expressive at the same time of his wish to resume the interrupted discourse, and of his own pacific intentions. The quick eye of the stranger was not slow to note the action, but it was not until a sufficient time had passed to allow him to debate the prudence of the measure in his own mind, that he seemed willing to trust himself again, so near a party that was so much superior to himself in physical power, and consequently one that was able, at any instant, to command his life, or control his personal liberty. When he did approach nigh enough to converse with facility, it was with a singular mixture of haughtiness and of distrust.
“It is far to the village of the Loups,” he said, stretching his arm in a direction contrary to that in which, the trapper well knew, the tribe dwelt, “and the road is crooked. What has the Big-knife to say?”
“Ay, crooked enough!” muttered the old man in English, “if you are to set out on your journey by that path, but not half so winding as the cunning of an Indian’s mind. Say, my brother; do the chiefs of the Pawnees love to see strange faces in their lodges?”
The young warrior bent his body gracefully, though but slightly, over the saddle-bow, as he replied—
“When have my people forgotten to give food to the stranger?”
“If I lead my daughters to the doors of the Loups, will the women take them by the hand; and will the warriors smoke with my young men?”
“The country of the Pale-faces is behind them. Why do they journey so far towards the setting sun? Have they lost the path, or are these the women of the white warriors, that I hear are wading up the river of ‘the troubled waters?’ ”
“Neither. They, who wade the Missouri, are the warriors of my great father, who has sent them on his message; but we are peace-runners. The white men and the red are neighbours, and they wish to be friends. —Do not the Omahaws visit the Loups, when the tomahawk is buried in the path between the two nations?”
“The Omahaws are welcome.”
“And the Yanktons, and the burnt-wood Tetons, who live in the elbow of the river, ‘with muddy water,’ do they not come into the lodges of the Loups and smoke?”
“The Tetons are liars!” exclaimed the other. “They dare not shut their eyes in the night. No; they sleep in the sun. See,” he added, pointing with fierce triumph to the frightful ornaments of his leggings, “their scalps are so plenty, that the Pawnees tread on them! Go; let a Sioux live in banks of snow; the plains and buffaloes are for men!”
“Ah! the secret is out,” said the trapper to Middleton, who was an attentive, because a deeply interested, observer of what was passing. “This good-looking young Indian is scouting on the track of the Siouxes—you may see it by his arrow-heads, and his paint; ay, and by his eye, too; for a Red-skin lets his natur’ follow the business he is on, be it for peace, or be it for war, —quiet, Hector, quiet. Have you never scented a Pawnee afore, pup?—keep down, dog—keep down—my brother is right. The Siouxes are thieves. Men of all colours and nations say it of them, and say it truly. But the people from the rising sun are not Siouxes, and they wish to visit the lodges of the Loups.”
“The head of my brother is white,” returned the Pawnee, throwing one of those glances at the trapper, which were so remarkably expressive of distrust, intelligence, and pride, and then pointing, as he continued, towards the eastern horizon, “and his eyes have looked on many things—can he tell me the name of what he sees yonder—is it a buffaloe?”