“My brother has a fine gun,” he said in the Indian tongue, endeavoring to lay his hand upon the weapon. But Little Fox tore it away from him in drunken wrath.
“Wagh! It is the gun of the white man, and the Sacs will fall before it as the leaves when they are yellow,” he said.
“My brother is very rich. He must have taken much fur to buy so fine a gun,” said the young Indian, who already showed the qualities which afterward gave him a leading place in the tribe.
“Little Fox is the friend of the white man, and he can get a gun for nothing,” was the reply. “When Black-Hawk comes with his warriors he will find the white men ready.”
“Has my brother told the white men what Black-Hawk is doing?” said the young Sac, vailing his rage.
“Little Fox can speak or Little Fox can be silent,” replied the Pottawatomie. “Look: to-morrow he is to have enough rum to last him a whole moon, because he is the friend of the white man.”
“Fire-water is good,” said the Sac. “Has my brother a canoe to carry it across the river?”
The Indian shook his head, and a sort of hazy idea passed through his clouded brain that he had already said as much as he ought concerning the affair.
“I have a fine canoe,” continued the son of Black-Hawk. “Let my brother bring the rum to the Point, and I will help him carry it away.”
The Pottawatomie nodded gravely, and went on his sinuous way, while the young chief darted into the forest, and taking a circuitous course, reached his father’s village at early morning. The old chief was in his lodge, in an attitude of the deepest dejection, for he had not sought a quarrel with the whites. Near him, seated upon a pile of skins, and with a look of deep malice on his face, sat Black Will, holding his rifle in his brown right hand.