He had forced her to speak to him at last; but the words were hardly to his satisfaction. He flung around in his seat with an ugly scowl.
Meanwhile old Paul was still pursuing his thoughts about redskins. "Indians think when they go off their heads they're obliged to be cannibals," he continued agreeably. "They can't separate the two idees somehow. So when a redskin feels a screw beginning to work loose up above, he settles on a nice, fat, tender subject. He says his head's full of ice, and has to be melted. I mind one winter at Caribou Lake forty years back, we were all nigh starving, and our bones was comin' through our skins, like ten-p'ny nails in a paper bag. And one night they comes snoopin' into the settlement an Indian woman as sleek and soft and greasy as a fresh sausage—and lickin' her chops—um—um! There was a man with her and he let it out. She had knifed two young half-breed widows, as fair and beautiful a two girls as ever I see—and she et 'em, yes, ma'am! And nobody teched her; they warn't no police in them days. She lives to the Lake at this day!"
"Good Law! Mr. Smiley!" cried Nell with an uneasy glance at the grinning half-breed on the tail-step.
"Keep cool, old gal!" growled Nick. "Nobody wouldn't pick you out for a square meal!"
Nell's companion rewarded this sally with an enormous guffaw; and poor, mortified Nell made believe to laugh too. Natalie's cheeks burned.
"I suppose you hunted buffalo in the old days," said Garth to old Paul.
"Sure, I was quite a hunter," he returned with a casual air. "It weren't everybody as was considered a hunter, neither. You had to earn your reppytation. We didn't do no drivin' over cliffs or wholesale slaughterin'; it was clean huntin' with us, powder and ball. I mind they used to make a big party, as high as two hundred men, whites, breeds, and friendly redskins. Everything was conducted regular; camp-guards and a council and a captain was elected; and all rules strict observed. Every night we camped inside a barricade. One of the rules was, no tough old bulls useless for meat should be killed under penalty of twenty-five dollars. I was had up before the council for that; but I proved it was self-defense."
"Tell us about it," suggested Garth.
The old man scratched his head, and shot a dubious glance at Natalie. "I ain't sure as this is quite a proper story," he said. "You see, I was having a wash, as it might happen, at the edge of a slough—a slough is a little pond in the prairie, Miss, as you're a stranger—and my clothes and my gun was lying beside me, and my horse was croppin' the grass at the top of the rise. When I was as clean as slough water would make me, which isn't much, 'cause I stirred up a power of mud, and soap was an extravagance them days, I begun to dress myself. Well, I had my shirt on, and was sittin' down to pull on my pants, when I heard my cayuse start off on a dead run. I looked up quick-like and blest if there wasn't old Bill Buffalo a-pawin' and a-bellerin' and a-shakin' of his head, not thirty yards away! Soon as he see me look up he come chargin' down on me with his big head close to the ground like a locomotive cow-catcher. And me in that awkward state of dishabilly!"
"What did you do, Mr. Smiley?" cried Nell in suspense.