"When we get inside the next station I'm going to give it one good blow, Injuns or no Injuns," he declared.
So far had they now come by the road southwest, south, southeast, and south again, that they were in the heart of Kentucky and approaching Harrod's station not far distant from Boonesboro.
At Harrod's they had meant to eat hot game and save their full saddle-bags for the wagon-train. But the sight of an Indian trading at the post made them pause and go into a consultation with the storekeeper.
A general store was kept in each of these stations. It dealt in every article a settler could want. Here a trapper, red or white, who never had any money could "swap" his furs for powder and coffee with a storekeeper who never had any money, either. Though powder and coffee were each a dollar a pound, neither the buyer nor the seller ever saw that dollar. Trading was the rule.
Doby paid little heed to anything except the Indian, who stood motionless beside a pile of 'coonskins which he had laid on a tobacco bale. Any boy would have known that Indian for a warrior. He wore a plain blanket. There were no feathers and no paint to be seen upon him, yet he looked the wild fighting-man. He was tall and straight, haughty of bearing, cruelly beautiful. He ignored the hunters with royal indifference while he waited for his goods to be packed.
As Doby eyed the savage he thought: "How handsome he is and how powerful! Perhaps Tecumseh had the same appearance."
Under the boy's admiring stare the Indian stood absolutely and perfectly still, minute after minute, minute after minute, until Doby became possessed of an impulse to test that stolidity, to shock that dignity. So he impishly blew into the pig's-bladder whistle. Its blast rent the air.
With snake-like quickness the Indian's hand shot out. He grabbed the whistle and hid it in his blanket. He offered a blue-jay feather in exchange. Doby felt indignant at this sort of trading and showed that he did, whereupon the Indian, who certainly had seemed to have neither paint nor feathers upon him, stuck the first feather and then a second one in the front of Doby's cap. In so doing he left a streak of paint on the boy's forehead. It was of the same shape and color as the feather.
The boy's face flamed with anger, but when the watching Kenton said, "Make your manners, bub," Doby thrust his hand into the Indian's palm and said, "How?"