Hammond whirled.
At the door of the diner stood a weird figure. His face was swarthy, almost black, with livid red scars on the cheek-bones below each eye. Straight black hair, coarse as a horse’s mane, fell in glossy strands to his shoulders from his uncovered head, where a single eagle’s feather was fastened at the back with a band of purple bound round the temples and the brow. He wore a much-beaded, close-fitting costume of brightly-coloured blanket-cloth, shoepack moccasins and string upon string of glistening white wolves’ teeth around his neck.
His was a face of deep sagacity, features aquiline and regular as a white man’s but possessing that solemn majesty of the headmen of Northern tribes. It was made the more forbidding by the self-inflicted wounds in the cheeks, and the whites of his eyes showed garishly as he leisurely surveyed the room.
“Ogima Bush,” he announced in a deep voice that commanded respect in spite of his bizarre appearance. “Ogima Bush look to find Big Boss.”
“Mr. Smith?” It was Macdougal who spoke.
“Un-n-n-n—Smid. Maybe you know where me find?”
“Gone,” informed Macdougal, throwing out his arms expressively. “Gone away out on lake early. Maybe not be back for long time.”
The Indian grunted. “Maybe you tell him Big Boss Ogima Bush come to see him? Tell him big Medicine Man.”
“All right,” assented Macdougal.
The Indian turned and strode out, but not before he fixed Hammond for one fleeting instant with an uncanny flash from his fierce black eyes, a glint in them that seemed to pierce the young man through and through.