He stared long and curiously at his own distorted image, which was reflected from the unpainted tin of the inside of the cover, felt cautiously of the paraffined paper, and, raising the box to his nose, sniffed noisily at the contents.
Apparently satisfied, he removed a dozen or more of the slices and ground them slowly between the palms of his hands. This done, he rammed possibly one-tenth of the mass into the bowl of his ancient pipe and carefully conveyed the remainder to his pocket.
"Match?" he asked. And Bill passed over his monogrammed silver match-box, which received its share of careful examination, evidently, however, not meeting the approval accorded the gaudy tobacco-box.
The Indian abstracted about one-half of the matches, which he transferred to the pocket containing the tobacco. Then, calmly selecting a dry twig from the pile of firewood, thrust the end through a hole in the broken stove, and after much noisy puffing at length succeeded in igniting the tightly tamped tobacco in his pipe-bowl.
"Thank you," said Bill, contemplating his few remaining matches. "You're a bashful soul, aren't you? Did you ever serve a term in the Legislature?"
The Indian's command of English did not include a word Bill had uttered; nevertheless, his mangled lip writhed about the pipe-stem in grotesque grin.
"Boots!" he grunted, eying the bandaged feet. "No good!" and he complacently wriggled the toes in his own soft moccasins. Bill noted the movement, and a sudden desire obsessed him to possess at any cost those same soft moccasins.
Wabishke, like most Indians, was a born trader, and he was quick to note the covetous glance that the white chechako cast toward his footgear.
"Will you sell those?" asked Bill, pointing toward the moccasins. The Indian regarded them thoughtfully, and again the toes wriggled comfortably beneath the pliable moose-skin covering. Bill tried again.
"How much?" he asked, touching the moccasins with his finger.