Percy Vere smiled.
“That is a secret best known to yourself,” he rejoined. “At the risk of offending you I must tell you that I believe you to be a skillful Professor of Legerdemain, and by the exercise of it you have gained your ascendancy over the rude minds of the Indians.”
“Far from feeling offense, I like your candor,” responded the Prophet, graciously. “My power impresses the white mind as well as the red—as you shall have proof anon. You heard the voice of my Monedo, or Spirit, in the air—you heard his voice, but his body remained invisible to your eye. How can you account for that?”
“You may have the gift of ventriloquism. My father had such a gift, for I have often heard my mother describe it. He could throw his voice into inanimate or animate objects to the great perplexity of the hearer.”
“Yes,” chimed in Cute, “and I have heard lots of funny stories about him. One day an old woman came to the house to make some inquiries, and trod, by accident, upon the cat’s tail; and he made the cat say: ‘You old fool! don’t you know any better than that?’ It nearly frightened the old woman into a fit, and she left the house in a big hurry, I tell you; and she believed to her dying day that the cat really spoke to her.”
Oneotah indulged in a musical laugh at this recital.
The boys regarded him curiously.
“Holloa! does he understand what I say?” asked Cute.
“Perfectly,” replied the Prophet. “English is as familiar to him as his own tongue.”
“And to yourself,” rejoined Percy Vere, pointedly.