"My sister is a brave woman," Valentine replied: "she is worthy to be the wife of a renowned chief."
The young mother smiled as she embraced her child, which she presented, with a movement full of grace, to the hunter, who kissed it on the forehead. At this moment the song of the maukawis was heard at a short distance off. The two hunters raised their heads in surprise, and looked around them.
"The quail sings very late, I fancy," Valentine muttered suspiciously.
The Indian girl smiled as she looked down, but gave no answer. Suddenly a slight cracking of dry branches disturbed the silence. Valentine and Curumilla made a move, as if to spring up and seize their rifles that lay by their side.
"My brothers must not stir," the squaw said quickly: "it is a friend."
The hunters remained motionless, and the girl then imitated with rare perfection the cry of the blue jay. The bushes parted, and an Indian warrior, perfectly painted and armed for war, bounded like a jackal over the grass and herbs that obstructed his passage, and stopped in face of the hunters. This warrior was Unicorn. He saluted the two men with that grace innate in the Indian race; then he crossed his arms on his breast and waited, without taking a glance at his squaw, or even appearing to have seen her. On her side the Indian woman did not stir.
During several moments a painful silence fell on the four persons whom chance had assembled in so strange a way. At length Valentine, seeing the warrior insisted on being silent, decided he would be the first to speak.
"Unicorn is welcome to our camp," he said. "Let him take a seat by the fire of his brothers, and share with them the provisions they possess."
"I will take a seat by the fire of my paleface brother," he replied; "but he must first answer me a question I wish to ask of him."
"My brother can speak: my ears are open."