“Ho, little bear!” he chuckled. “Come down. Acorns not ripe yet.”
Well, Robert the Hunter came down. He thought it possible to land upon his gun, but Shingis had quickly picked that up and knocked out the flint.
“Ugh!” said Shingis, receiving him with a grip in his hair. “Fine little bear. But tree a bad place. Many hunters around. Look for Mingo bear. Better be Delaware bear. Go to fort with Shingis. Shingis got no boy. Now he take care of this boy. Make him Delaware.”
So saying, Shingis gave a series of whoops; other Indians came running—they laughed, and tying the Hunter’s arms hustled him on to the fort.
The pursuit sounds had died away. Christopher Gist may have won free, and so he had; for, as Robert afterward found out, Gist and Scarouady and Aroas as well, got back to the column—Scarouady with the scalp of a French officer whom he had shot in the woods.
XIX
IN FORT DUQUESNE AGAIN
This was tough. There was a lot of whooping and shouting when from the edge of the clearing over which floated the white flag of France above the log walls old Shingis uttered his prisoner yell; and there was a lot of joking and laughing—and disappointment, too—when he marched his prisoner in and they all saw that it was nobody but a boy.
But hold! What boy? Why, the boy who had run away last fall! Wah! Ugh! Hurons and Pontiac’s Ottawas recognized this boy; and Pontiac himself strode, scowling, to demand the prisoner of old Shingis.
Shingis and Pontiac had an argument about the matter. Then that seemed settled. Pontiac called, the Indians ran about grabbing things, and formed a long, double line, of men and women facing inward equipped with clubs and switches. The double line extended like a living lane to the fort gates.