“Injin, the sight o’ the ol’ Gener’l makes me sad—makes me think o’ him that’s dead an’ gone.”
“Ugh!” his red companion grunted stolidly. But the copper-colored face twitched; the bare and brawny chest heaved.
“Yes,” the speaker continued, “the sight o’ General Harrison calls up things I wish I could fergit—it does, by cracky! Gol-fer-socks! I can’t fergit ’em—not if I lived to be as old as Methusaler,—’r was it Nebbycaneezer? I’m a little rusty on Scriptur’, an’ liable to git mixed, somehow. But, pshaw! The past is gone—an’ gone ferever. The comrade we both loved is dead. Didn’t we see him shot through the heart? No—come to think of it—he wasn’t shot through the heart; ’cause he was shot in the right side—an’ the heart’s on the left side, in most human critters. But he was dead, anyhow—killed by the danged Winnebagoes!”
Again the speaker paused long enough to blow his nose and wipe his watery eyes. Then he resumed in the same mournful, sing-song voice:
“Though I seen him dyin’ with my own eyes, Injin, sometimes I find myself thinkin’ he’s still alive—I do, by Matildy Jane! I’ve dream’d o’ him nights so much, it ’pears to me he can’t be dead. But, of course, he is. ’Cause why? We left him dyin’. Well, it don’t do no good to grieve. But ther’s one thing I’d like to know right smart—an’ that’s what become o’ the dog.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated the Indian, nodding. “Me heap like know where hound. Much good dog—sight big brave.”
The white man went on:
“An’ dang-it-all-to-dingnation! Here we are—jest got back from eighteen months o’ traipsin’ from one Winnebago town to another, all over God’s creation, all over the Northwest—an’ we’re right plump into another hornets’ nest. Talk ’bout jumpin’ out o’ the fryin’ pan into the fire! We’ve jumped out o’ ice water into b’ilin’ oil. Here we’ve been drug ’round fer a year an’ a half, beat and starved an’ cuffed every day in the week—an’ give a double dose on Sundays. My heart’s been in my mouth so much, I’ve chawed off one end of it an’ spit it out with my tobacker—I have, by my gran’father’s barn-door britches! An’ now we’ve made our escape at last—got half-way back from p’rdition to glory—we’re in another peck o’ trouble.
“As near as I can learn from the talk that’s goin’ on ’mong the soldiers, Gener’l Proctor an’ Tecumseh’s comin’ to attack this place—with not less’n three thousan’ white an’ red devils. Three thousan’ to five hundred! A purty pickle—I swear! W’y, hang-it-up-an’-take-it-down-an’-cook-it! They’ll eat us up without salt ’r pepper! ’Cause Ol’ Tippecanoe’ll never surrender—he don’t know how. He’s jest like ol’ Mad Anthony—they say he trained under that ol’ war hoss—an’ he’ll fight as long as he’s got an ounce of lead left, an’ a flintlock to shoot it in. Look at him now, Bright Wing. He’s ev’ry inch a soldier, ain’t he?”
“Ugh!” the imperturbable Wyandot assented. “Tippecanoe him heap sight brave. Him kill many bad Shawnees, Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies. Him fight till me, you—all dead.”