"That's good!" remarked Alf cheerfully. "You feel better now, don't you?"
Red Fox looked straight into the boy's face, but without appearing to recognise him. Then he muttered a few words in Indian and closed his eyes again.
For some time he lay with his head resting against his nurse, while Alf's thoughts began to wander to his absent father and the chum whom he had left in such strange fashion.
Then he looked down again, and saw that the Indian was regarding him with eyes wide open—looking at him in a peculiar wondering fashion, as if he saw for the first time a being of some strange creation.
Holden smiled encouragingly as he touched the man's brow with the damp cloth.
"How does the head feel now?" he asked. "Does the cut pain you much?"
Red Fox did not answer immediately, but continued to stare at the lad with the same open-eyed wonder.
"Pale-face kind," he said at length, in quiet tones. "He touch Red Fox like wing of a dove. Why is the white boy so good?"
"Nonsense," returned Alf. "It's nothing at all. You don't think that Englishmen would leave a fellow to bleed to death, do you?"
"No—English boy good," said the redskin. Then he added, with a sort of wistfulness: "But Indian would leave pale-face——"