Alone at Last with My Enemy.
My stricken foe looked steadily into my face; once his lips parted to speak, but no sound came from them.
For my part I did not know what to say to him. A score of thoughts pressed upon my tongue for utterance, but none of them seemed suited to this strange occasion. Everything that occurred to me was either weak or over-violent. Two distinct ideas of this momentary irresolution I remember--one was to leave him in silence for my Oneidas to tomahawk and scalp; the other was to curse him where he lay.
There was nothing in his whitening face to help me to a decision. The look in his eyes was both sad and savage--an expression I could not fathom. For all it said to me, he might be thinking wholly of his wound, or of nothing whatever. The speechless fixity of this gaze embarrassed me. For relief I turned to Enoch, and said sharply:
"You haven't told me yet what you were doing here."
The trapper kept his chin still on its rest, and only for a second turned his shrewd gray eyes from the wounded quarry to me.
"You can see for yourself, can't ye?" he said. "What do people mostly do when there's shooting going on, and they've got a gun?"
"But how came you here at all? I thought you were to stay at--at the place where I put you."
"That was likely, wasn't it! Me loafing around the house like a tame cat among the niggers while good fighting was going on up here!"
"If you wanted to come, why not have marched with us? I asked you."