“Joe, you may not be a fool, but you’re acting the part of one, at any rate. You know as well as I that the Wyandots are the friends of the Americans, that the Shawnees are the allies of the British. Of course, there are traitors in both tribes; but what I have stated is true in the main. Bright Wing is my comrade—your friend. If you’re a man, you’ll beg his pardon.”
“An’ that’s jest what I’m goin’ to do,” Farley shamefacedly muttered. “’Pears that I’ll never git to understandin’ Injins. They’re so danged touchy.”—This in an aggrieved tone.—“But I had no business to be tormentin’ Bright Wing—he’s a redskin with a white man’s heart in his breast. Injin, here’s my hand. I didn’t mean to hurt y’r feelin’s.”
“All right—me know,” murmured Bright Wing in guttural accents.
Then he moved aside and seated himself upon the prow of the canoe.
“Now, Joe, we must be off,” Ross began hurriedly.
“You mean what you’ve said—you’re goin’ to jine the army?” Farley interrupted.
Douglas nodded.
“Goin’ to leave y’r land an’ everything an’ go off to fight Injins—an’ Britishers, maybe?”
“The land will keep,” Ross laughed. “Little good it does me, at any rate. I have never cut a stick of timber upon it.”
“That’s what I mean,” replied the other earnestly. “You ort to stay an’ clear it up an’ make a home of it. Quit y’r huntin’ an’ traipsin’ ’round with such fellers as me an’ Bright Wing, an’ settle down. It don’t make much differ’nce what I do. But you’ve got book learnin’ an’ good sense. You’re wastin’ y’r time.”