“Let me ax you something else, then. Do them Blackfeet where she’s stayin’ b’long thar?”
“They have lived there a long time, and no doubt expect to remain there for a long time to come, but they do not belong to the Blackfeet tribe.”
“What tribe, then?”
“They are the Meagans.”
“I’ve heard tell of them, years ago, but I thought they war all dead.”
“They were once a powerful tribe, and these are all that are left of them, scarcely a hundred souls. You know they are Christians.”
Black Tom did not know that, nor did he know any thing of them, except that such a tribe had once been a power in the West, but he had supposed hitherto that they had vanished from the earth long since.
“They have been Christianized through the efforts of the good Moravian missionaries,” continued Hammond, “and they live a quiet, unobtrusive life among themselves, disturbing nobody, and desirous of being left alone by all who pass through this region.”
“What is the gal doing with them?”
“Suppose we drop all reference to her for the present,” was the pleasant reply of his companion; “you are here for the purpose of hunting gold, and I must warn you not to interfere with the Meagans.”