Anahem looked surprised that even a sick man should complain of such a trifling hill. An old squaw would have carried two sacks (a hundred pounds) of flour up it without a murmur, and Steve's pack did not weigh half that.
"Your bones," he said, smiling rather contemptuously, "white bone, our bones wild bone," and then turning to Corbett he pointed out to him where the deep-bellied Frazer roared along in the valley below the pine-woods, and to one spot upon its banks, where, so he said, was the white man's dug-out.
"You see," he said, "where the sun will set."
"Nawitka" (Certainly), answered Ned.
"Now, look on the Frazer's banks under there where the sun will set, and you will see one patch all the same, like blood."
"Yes, I see it."
"Now, look to that side of it," and he waved his hand to the left, "and you will see one great mud-mountain like this;" and with his stick he drew in the sandy soil at his feet a picture of a great cathedral organ, with pipes reaching from the river to the sky.
Ned was startled by the strange likeness which the chief's picture bore to a thing which the chief could never have seen, but he held his peace and looked for the mud-mountain.
"Yes, chief," he said. "I see a great mountain of mud, but I cannot see the shape of it from here."
"Not see the shape of him! Ah, my friend not see well yet," said Anahem pityingly; and though Ned knew very well that his sight was as good as it had ever been, he said nothing.