"I'll remember that; double for trouble."
"Three means good news. There's luck in odd numbers."
"And what is four?"
[356] "Well, it ain't har'ly ever used. If I seen four smokes in camp I'd know something big was on—maybe a Grand Council."
"Well, if you saw five smokes what would you think?"
"I'd think some blame fool was settin' the hull place a-blaze," Caleb replied with the sniff end of a laugh.
"Just now you said one stone on another was a sign. What does it mean?"
"Course I can't speak for all Injuns. Some has it for one thing an' some for another, but usually in the West two stones or 'Buffalo chips' settin' one on the other means 'This is the trail'; and a little stone at the left of the two would mean 'Here we turned off to the left'; and at the other side, 'Here we turned to the right.' Three stones settin' one on top of another means, 'This is sure enough the trail,' 'Special' or 'Particular' or 'Look out'; an' a pile of stones just throwed together means 'We camped here 'cause some one was sick.' They'd be the stones used for giving the sick one a steam bath."
"Well, what would they do if there were no stones?"