Then, on tin plates, he handed each of the boys and old Joe a portion, accompanied by a hunk of baking powder bread. The long day’s journey in the cold, nipping air had made them ravenously hungry. They fell to with wolfish appetites on Pegic’s fare. The Indian, his jaws working stolidly, watched them eat. He was a small man and rather intelligent-looking.
After the meal, the dogs were fed and old Joe told the boys that they would stay with Pegic for the night. As both lads were just about tired out, this arrangement suited them down to the ground, and in the glow of Pegic’s fire they lay down and were soon asleep.
Then old Joe began to ask the Indian questions. Indians must be dealt with calmly and above all slowly, and in a roundabout way. Haste or undue curiosity upsets them. To ask an Indian a brief question is in all probability to have it unanswered. Hence old Joe proceeded with caution. The conversation was carried on in Pegic’s dialect, which the old French-Canadian understood perfectly.
First of all he asked the Indian how long he had been camped there.
“Two days,” was the reply.
“To-day a man passed here?”
The Indian nodded gravely, staring into the fire.
“It is even so. Just as you say, my friend.”
CHAPTER XII—THE FRIENDLY INDIAN.
“I am teenking dat perhaps he stopped at your tepee. Is dat so?” inquired old Joe, wise in the way of Indians.