“He always war a plucky critter,” said the mountaineer, when the recital was finished, and speaking us though he had no particular regrets at his death; “I thought that ever since the time when he war a cub, and come mighty near chawin’ me up; but what sort of critter was it that he lit on?” he asked, as he walked forward to examine it.
The trapper poked the carcass with his foot and gun, for some minutes, stooping down and peering at it with no little curiosity. Finally he seemed to give up the conundrum as past his ability.
“See here, Maquesa,” said he, turning to the chief, “you was born and raised in the woods. Come and tell me what sort of a critter this is.”
The Blackfoot thus appealed to walked forward, and made the same examination as did his white friend, but seemingly with very little more success.
“Hooh!” he grunted, “he no bear—he debbel!”
“P’r’aps he is,” was the comment of Old Ruff, as he walked back and resumed his seat, “but I didn’t know the Old Boy was killed as easy as that.”
This piece of badinage being finished, the party arranged themselves for more serious business. The two red-skins, who had acted the part of dummies thus far, lit their pipes and stretched out in a lazy posture upon the ground, ready and willing to wait their master’s orders, no matter how long they might be deferred.
Maquesa and Old Ruff seated themselves near each other, and Harry assumed a position where he could be certain of hearing every word that passed between them. Great, therefore, was his disappointment, when they began talking, to find that it was in the Blackfoot tongue!
“Confound it!” he exclaimed, desperately, “if I had known that that was the trick they were going to play, I would have learned the gibberish myself.”
But there seemed to be no help for it, and he concluded to take the matter philosophically. So he gathered his blanket about him, and, nestling down by the rocks, went to sleep.