"'By George, Andy, you have got us in a fine scrape. However, my lady,' said the old man to the bear, 'you can't have that cub now: we never give up to anybody;' and, with that, he fired a ball between her eyes. But instead of dying, she attacked us, and we had a desperate fight. She got the worst of it though, for we carried off both her skin and cub. You ought to have seen the cub, it was a beauty, and when I gave it to Polly, she pretended that she thought it the nicest keepsake she ever saw. The other was, the skin of a snake. It was nearly six feet long, and very wide, spotted all over its back with white, brown, and black spots, and its sides were striped with brown, so that, when I split it open in the middle, it looked like a ribbon. I made it as soft, smooth and pretty as anything you ever saw.
"I did really think Polly was trying to deceive him, until he was going away, when I saw that pretty snake skin tied around his plunder, and as if that was not enough with a string in hand, he was leading away the cub of the grizzly bear that I had brought all the way from Superior for her."
"My brother's squaw's tongue was forked—the antelope's tongue is not forked, she cannot lie," said the chief.
"Look here, chief; they are all alike. When they say they will have you, they mean they will if they don't get out of the notion of it."
"My brother's heart is dark, and, looking through it, he sees nothing but gloom, where I see sunshine," returned the chief.
"That is, I am to understand, you are in love, and uncle thinks it is an exploded fallacy," said Edward, laughing; for, in truth, he was in a merry mood, and his uncle's mishaps did not have a tendency to lessen it in the least.
"It is nonsense, all nonsense," said the trapper.
"Hist!" said the chief, laying his finger on his lip, "there is large game approaching!—there! I hear it again: have your arrows in readiness," he continued, after a moment's pause.
"Deer, perhaps," said the trapper, "it comes in leaps; I hear it distinctly."
"Yes, deer," said the chief, drawing his bow to his shoulder as a noble buck bounded in sight, with his tongue protruding from his mouth, and his eyes had a wild look of agony and terror, such as is only seen at a moment of despair.