Keeping his body covered by the muzzle of the deadly little weapon, the boy now advanced a half-dozen steps, so as to bring him far nearer to the canoe and rifle than was his foe, then halted. Feeling himself undisputed master of the field, he showed a boyish propensity to use his authority.
“How are you on a walk, old chap? You look greasy and dirty enough to slip along without any trouble. Now turn your face to the Cascade Range, and travel. I’ve heard some of your chiefs say that their home is in the setting sun, and now you can go hunt for it.”
As there was no need of such extreme caution, now that the Blackfoot was deprived of his weapon, Little Rifle lowered his gun, and emphasized his words by appropriate gestures.
“Your face is toward the sun, and now travel; keep it up for a month or two. If you look back, I’ll pull the trigger without waiting to give you a chance to sing your death-song. Go!”
Not Weston himself could have surpassed the gait of the red-skin, as he obeyed this peremptory order. Turning his broad, flat face to the Cascade Range, he started off like a hen-pecked husband, who suddenly discovers that it is a little past the hour when he promised to be in the bosom of his family, and he has good cause to dread the consequences of his forgetfulness.
Little Rifle stood smiling and amused, never once removing his eyes from the dusky scamp, until he disappeared from view in the wild, rocky ground that made the bank of the river.
“Now, as he has left, I will do the same,” concluded Little Rifle, and placing his gun and that of the Indian in the canoe, he shoved it into the water, sprung in and took the paddle.
And, as he did so, he proved himself as much at home as when setting his beaver-traps and pursuing the game through the fastnesses of Oregon.
Turning the head of the boat toward the other shore, he sent it skimming over the swift current with as much speed and skill as the Blackfoot Indian himself had displayed.
“If I could only feel that he would keep on walking for a week or two, I wouldn’t think any more about the red-skin,” he mused, as he glanced back toward the shore he was leaving so rapidly behind; “but I don’t think he will forgive me for what I did.”