[CHAPTER XXVI.]
RED WOLF.
To understand the facts we are now about to narrate, we must retrace our steps a short distance, and return to the tent which served as a temporary abode to the Count and Bright-eye.
The two white men were somewhat discontented by the way in which the interview had terminated. Still the Count was too thorough a gentleman not to allow, honourably, that on this occasion the Chief had been the victor in magnanimity. As for Bright-eye, however, he could not see so far. Furious at the check he had sustained, and especially at the slight value the Chief appeared to set on his capture, he revolved the most terrible schemes of vengeance while biting his nails savagely.
The Count amused himself for a few minutes in watching his comrade's manoeuvres, as he walked up and down the tent, growling, clenching his fists, dashing the butt of his rifle on the ground, and looking up to heaven with comic despair. At last the young man could stand it no longer, but burst into a hearty laugh. The hunter stopped in amazement, and looked around the tent, to discover the cause for such untimely gaiety.
"What has happened, Mr. Edward?" he at length asked, "Why do you laugh so?"
Naturally this question, asked with a startled air, had no other result than to augment the Count's hilarity.
"My good fellow," he said, "I am laughing at the singular faces you cut, and the strange manoeuvres you have been indulging in during the last twenty minutes."
"Oh, Mr. Edward!" Bright-eye said, reproachfully; "how can you jest so?"