“But you must beware of the Wolf.”
“Ho! He want my scalp. Ho! I know.”
“You must always be alert.”
“Bright Star does not fear. Only the sitting rabbit is caught by the fox.”
The position of the sun now showed mid-day; so the twins took a quantity of food from a canvas pouch that Ben had carried over his shoulder. There was corn bread, some slices of cold roast duck, and several rosy apples. A share of this they offered to their savage companion, who accepted without demur. For a time, all three ate hungrily and in silence, washing down the tasty victuals with draughts of cold water from a clear spring that bubbled from the rocks and then ran away like a tiny rivulet into the nearby lake.
“White boys are brothers to Bright Star,” asserted the Pottawattomee presently, as he tossed away the core of an apple that he had been munching. “Bright Star wish that all white man and all red man be like brothers.”
“Maybe they will be from now on,” observed Tom hopefully.
“Ugh! it will not be so.”
“Not so, you say?”
The young chief was silent for a long moment; as if weighing well the words he was to utter. The only sounds to be heard were the gentle lapping of the waves on the rocks and the clacking of the innumerable gulls that circled over the lake surface.