“No wigwam there,” Arrowhead answered in his unmoved manner—“too much tree.”
“But Indians must be there; perhaps some old mess-mates of your own, Master Arrowhead.”
“No Tuscarora—no Oneida—no Mohawk—pale-face fire.”
“The devil it is? Well, Magnet, this surpasses a seaman's philosophy: we old sea-dogs can tell a lubber's nest from a mate's hammock; but I do not think the oldest admiral in his Majesty's fleet can tell a king's smoke from a collier's.”
The idea that human beings were in their vicinity, in that ocean of wilderness, had deepened the flush on the blooming cheek and brightened the eye of the fair creature at his side; but she soon turned with a look of surprise to her relative, and said hesitatingly, for both had often admired the Tuscarora's knowledge, or, we might almost say, instinct,—
“A pale-face's fire! Surely, uncle, he cannot know that?”
“Ten days since, child, I would have sworn to it; but now I hardly know what to believe. May I take the liberty of asking, Arrowhead, why you fancy that smoke, now, a pale-face's smoke, and not a red-skin's?”
“Wet wood,” returned the warrior, with the calmness with which the pedagogue might point out an arithmetical demonstration to his puzzled pupil. “Much wet—much smoke; much water—black smoke.”
“But, begging your pardon, Master Arrowhead, the smoke is not black, nor is there much of it. To my eye, now, it is as light and fanciful a smoke as ever rose from a captain's tea-kettle, when nothing was left to make the fire but a few chips from the dunnage.”
“Too much water,” returned Arrowhead, with a slight nod of the head; “Tuscarora too cunning to make fire with water! Pale-face too much book, and burn anything; much book, little know.”