'No, it does look watery, doesn't it?' said old Dick, looking up; 'but, hang it all, don't let us croak. Hand me another of those fish, Snap, if you can spare one. Bust me! if you don't eat half-pound trout as if they was shrimps,' he added.
'There's summat I'm thinking,' said Texan after a pause, 'that's worse nor weather. I don't want to croak, Dick, but air you sure about them Injuns? I kem acrost their fishing-camp to-day, and there isn't a soul in it. Do you calculate as they're on the war-path?'
'Not they!' replied Dick; 'a Crow won't face a Blackfoot nowadays, and, unless they're stealing horses or killing cattle, they aren't doing any harm, you bet.'
'How!'
It was a sound between a human voice and a dog's bark, sharp, hoarse, and guttural, and it appeared to proceed from the ground under Snap's seat. Snap was round as if a wasp had stung him. There had been no sound behind the camp-fire; no dry twig had cracked, no leaf rustled; and yet there was this sudden 'How!' and behind Snap stood, stiff and silent, a tall, grim-looking Redskin.
A sort of pointed hat of rush was on his head, through the band of which an eagle's plume had been stuck; round his shoulders was a bright-coloured blanket, and wide trousers of deer-skin, with long fringes of the same down the seams, reached to his ankles.
'Not a beauty,' Snap thought, and he moved a little uneasily away from the stranger, who stood quietly staring at the group.
The Indian was certainly not a beauty, even for an Indian. His hair was sleek and black—'snaky' Towzer called it. His eyes were small and set close together in a big bull-like head, and he was hare-lipped. His face, too, was full of lines and wrinkles. He was as old as the hills apparently, but old as the oaks grow old—strong and rugged, and nowhere near being worn out.
'How!' said Dick, and he rose and gave the chief his hand, and offered him a seat on his blanket, which he took.
'Do you speak English?' asked Snap as the Indian sat beside him, but the only answer he got was a stony stare.