"I am Winged Arrow, at your service," replied the Indian.
"Yes; but I don't know any more about you than I did before," returned Guy. "You are not an Indian?"
"A full-blooded one," was the response; and the savage proved that he had been among the soldiers just long enough to learn their ways, for he lifted his right leg and placed it across the horn of his saddle. "Perhaps my English bothers you."
"Well, yes; I confess that that has something to do with it," said Guy, growing more at his ease. "Where have you been to learn so much?"
"I have been at Carlisle. I was a student there for eight years."
"Oh," said Guy, his astonishment being immensely relieved. "But you did not stay there long enough to wash the red out of you."
"It would take more than eight years to do that. I learned the white man's ways, but I could not forget that I was an Indian. What do you fellows want out here anyway? The prairie is broad, and why could you not build a road somewhere else?"
Having got over his astonishment, Guy turned to make a note of the savage and his accoutrements. This was the first Indian he had ever seen close at hand, but as far as he had read or seen at a distance his trappings were all of the savage order. His moccasins, leggings, and hunting shirt, as well as the gaudily ornamented bonnet which he wore upon his head, were all of some squaw's handiwork. There was only one thing about him that looked any way civilized,—his hair was cut short in regular school-boy fashion. His face would have been a study if Guy had had the opportunity to give it a good looking-over. It was a noble face, and one that could hardly be expected to be found among men or boys of his tribe. How such a face as that should become distorted by passion was something Guy could not understand. The Indian certainly had no weapons about him. If he had, they kept company with Guy's Derringer—safely out of sight.
From the Indian,—or Winged Arrow, he called himself,—Guy turned his attention to his horse; for a horse was something he greatly admired. It was a small horse of sorrel color, but there was a look about him which drew his attention and which he greatly delighted in. The animal stood peaceable enough, but his head was erect, his eyes flashed continually as he glanced around the horizon, and he snuffed as often as he turned toward the Fort, as if he felt the presence of an enemy there. Guy was satisfied at last to turn his attention to Winged Arrow and hear what else he had to say.