Loyal Heart, after thanking them, himself restored his arms to the chief; who received them coldly, casting a sinister glance at his generous adversary.
The hunter, perceiving this feeling, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and departed with the prisoner.
Loyal Heart had, in less than ten minutes, made for himself an implacable enemy and a devoted friend.
The history of the prisoner was simple.
Having left Canada with his father, for the purpose of hunting in the prairies, they had fallen into the hands of the Comanches; after a desperate resistance, his father had fallen covered with wounds. The Indians, irritated at this death, which robbed them of a victim, had bestowed the greatest care upon the young man, in order that he might honourably figure at the stake of punishment, and this would inevitably have happened had it not been for the providential intervention of Loyal Heart.
After having obtained these particulars, the hunter asked the young man what his intentions were, and whether the rough apprenticeship he had gone through as a wood ranger had not disgusted him with a life of adventures.
"By my faith, no!" the other replied; "on the contrary, I feel more determined than ever to follow this career; and, besides," he added, "I wish to avenge my father."
"That is just," the hunter observed.
The conversation broke off at this point.
Loyal Heart, having conducted the young man to one of his cachés (a sort of magazines dug in the earth in which trappers collect their wealth), produced the complete equipment of a trapper,—gun, knife, pistols, game bags, and traps,—and then, after placing these things before his protégé, he said simply,—