“Yes, she has—with her eyes.”
“What nonsense!” Ree ejaculated. “Big Buffalo is ugly by disposition and has never forgotten the mistake I made when I overlooked him and supposed Fishing Bird to be in command of the hunting party I met that time they made me prisoner.”
Presently the talk drifted to other subjects, especially to the disposition of the furs that had accumulated, and the plan to take them to Detroit now seemed the best to follow.
“But after all,” Ree suggested, “we may be able to get a horse from the Delawares when Capt. Pipe and his men have gone.”
“No, he is going to take all the horses. They will dance and feast to-night, and to-morrow they start,” John answered.
“How do you know that?”
For a moment there was no answer; and then in a hesitating way, “Gentle Maiden told me,” John confessed.
“Oh, ho! You’ve been making love behind my back, have you? When did you talk with her?”
“Why, there was no love about it!” exclaimed John with some pretense of indignation. “We were only talking as anybody has a right to talk. It was while they were dancing. And Ree, she speaks better English than her father. The missionaries among the Moravians who were massacred several years ago, taught her. And she thinks it was right that Col. Crawford was burned because of that massacre, too.”
“I guess you have talked to the Indian girl before to-day, haven’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”