There was silence in the hut for a few minutes. Both men, lounging back on their comfortable furs, were busy with their respective reflections. Now and again a fiercer gust than usual would shake the whole structure, and as the doleful howling of the wolves sounded very near the door, the horses in the other compartment—which was used as a stable—would snort uneasily and paw the ground.
“You don’t know Indians even yet, Vipan,” said Smokestack Bill at length, speaking gravely, “else you’d never undertake to help them, even by advice, in butchering and outraging helpless women, let alone the men, though they can better look after themselves. No, you don’t know the red devils, take my word for it.”
“I had a notion I did,” was the hard reply. “As for that ‘helpless woman’ ticket, I won’t vote on it, Bill, old man. There’s no such thing as a ‘helpless’ woman; at least, I never met with such an article, and I used to be reckoned a tolerably good judge of that breed of cattle, too—”
His words were cut short. The dog uttered a savage growl, then sprang towards the door, barking. Each man coolly reached for his rifle, but that was all.
“I knew I wasn’t out of it,” muttered the scout, more to himself than to his hearer. “Smokestack Bill knew the war-whoop when he heard it. He ain’t no ‘tenderfoot,’ he ain’t.”
Swish—Whirr! The fierce blast shrieked around the lonely cabin. Its inmates having partially quieted the dog, were listening intently. Nothing could they hear beyond the booming of the tempest, which, unheeded in their conversation, had burst upon them with redoubled force.
“Only a grizzly that he hears,” said Vipan, in a low tone. “No red would be out to-night.”
Scarcely had he spoken than the loud, long-drawn howl of a wolf sounded forth, so near as to seem at their very door. Then the hoof-strokes of an unshod horse, and a light tap against the strong framework.
“It’s all straight. I thought I knew the yelp,” said the scout. Then he unhesitatingly slid back the strong iron bolts which secured the door, and admitted a single Indian.
The new comer was a tall, martial-looking young warrior, who, as he slid down the snow-besprinkled and gaudy-coloured blanket which had enshrouded his head, stood before them in the ordinary Indian dress. The collar of his tunic was of bears’ claws, and among the scalp-locks which fringed his leggings were several of silky fair hair. But for three thin lines of crimson crossing his face, and a vertical one from forehead to throat, he wore no paint, and from his scalp-lock dangled three long eagle-feathers stained black, their ends being gathered into tufts dyed a bright vermilion. For arms he carried a short bow, highly ornamented, and a quiver of wolfskin, the latter adorned with the grinning jaws of its original owner, and in his belt a revolver and bowie knife. This warlike personage advanced to Smokestack Bill, and shook him by the hand effusively. Then, turning to Vipan, he broke into a broad grin and ejaculated—