After supper, which the two ate in silence, while the squaw of Bonnet Rouge served them, they drew up their chairs to the stove. The boy asked questions as to the success of the trading, the news of the river country, and prospects for a good spring catch. Then the talk drifted to fox trapping, and Connie told the Indian that he and 'Merican Joe had set some traps on the lake a day's journey to the south-eastward. Pierre Bonnet listened attentively, but by not so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the fact that he had ever heard of the lake. Finally, the boy asked him, point-blank, if he had ever been there. Connie knew something of Indians, and, had been quick to note that Pierre held him in regard. Had this not been so, he would never have risked the direct question, for it is only by devious and round-about methods that one obtains desired information from his red brother.
Pierre puffed his pipe in silence for an interminable time, then he nodded slowly: "Yes," he answered, "I be'n dere."
"What is the name of that lake?"
"Long tam ago nem 'Hill Lak'. Now, Injun call um 'Lak'-of-de-Fox-Dat-Yell'."
"You have seen him, too—the fox that yells?" asked the boy, eagerly.
"Yes. I kill um two tam—an' he com' back."
"Came back!" cried the boy. "What do you mean?"
"He com' back—an' yell w'en de sun com' up. An' w'en de sun go down he yell on de side of de hill."
"But surely he couldn't yell after you'd killed him. You must have killed the wrong fox."