None answered her. They merely looked stupid.
Mahtsonza, a furlong off by this time, and feeling himself safe, turned around exhibiting the earthenware jug. He insolently turned it up to his lips.
Loseis recognized the style of the jug. Her heart sank at the young man’s act of open defiance; but no muscle of her face changed. “Now I understand,” she said coldly. “Blackburn’s whisky has been stolen.”
“No steal,” muttered the man called Ahchoogah. “It was a gift.”
“Who gave it?” demanded Loseis.
There was no answer.
Loseis stepped to the nearest tepee, and stuck her head through the opening. Within, a crowd of dejected women and children, crouched around a tiny fire on the ground.
“Where did they get it?” demanded Loseis.
A voice answered: “Etzooah brought it.”
All was clear to Loseis. She sickened with disgust that a man big and powerful as Gault could stoop to so cowardly a trick.