"My brother speaks words which Deerfoot does not know."
"What I mean to say is, that you have such a way of turning up when you're wanted very bad, that you're just the scamp to figure in a lot of story books; I wonder whether some simpleton won't undertake to use you that way. The only trouble will be that if he invents yarns about you, he'll make a fizzle of it, and, if he tells the truth, he will hardly be believed; but," added the youth, as if the mantle of prophecy had fallen on him, "it will depend a good deal on who it is that writes your life. Like enough it will be some fellow who won't be credited, no matter what he says—so he will be apt to pile it on."
Although Deerfoot possessed a good knowledge of the English language, he failed to understand his young friend, and awaited his explanation.
Meanwhile Hay-uta came forward and shook hands with Jack, muttering a word or two in broken English, expressive of his pleasure over his good fortune.
"What I meant to say," added the lad, turning again to Deerfoot, "is, that you've got such a habit of dropping down on your friends when they are in trouble, that some day it will be put in a book, just as your Bible is printed."
"Put Deerfoot in a book!" repeated the young Shawanoe, blushing like a school-girl; "he who will do that will be a fool!"
"Like enough," replied Jack, with a laugh; "but all the same, he will come along one of these days, long after you and I are dead."
"How will he know any thing of Deerfoot?" asked the young warrior, with a dismay as great as that of other parties since then who, contemplating such a calamity, have burned their private letters and papers; "if Deerfoot is dead, who shall tell him any thing about him?"
"Why, my dear fellow," laughed his young friend; "don't you know that Ned Preston, Wild Blossom Brown, and all the folks over in Kentucky who know you, will tell their friends and children what you have done; and here on this side the river it will be the same; till some time it will all be gathered together and put in a book that will be read by hundreds and thousands of people not born?"
Deerfoot showed by his expression that he did not fully understand the meaning of his young friend, or, if he did, he believed he was jesting. The idea of him ever figuring on the printed page could not be credited. He smiled and shook his head, as though he wished to talk of something else.