"Running Water is a chief," the voice answered. "His heart is glad when he sees a paleface suffer."
"Much good may it do you, chief; but I don't exactly see what profit you can derive from my sufferings."
"Running Water is an enemy of the Yoris."
"In the first place, redskin, let us settle facts; I am not a Yori, but a Canadian hunter, which I take some pride in informing you is by no means the same thing."
"Does my brother speak truly? Is he really a great heart of the east?"
"I fancy that you can recognize that fact from my way of speaking Spanish. But where the deuce are you stowed away, chief, for I cannot see you?"
"I am close to my brother, seated on his right hand."
The hunter looked carefully in the direction which the strange speaker indicated, and at length distinguished a human form crouched in a corner of the wall.
"On my word," he continued, "I am not sorry to have someone to talk to, for time passes more quickly. Tell me, chief, what have you done to be here?"
"Are not the Indians hunted like wild beasts by the Yoris?" he answered, bitterly. "Is a pretext wanted to kill a redskin?"