"Maybe he does," laughed Daddy Bunker. "You can try him if you like. Yes, go along to the house, if you wish, and if Bill Johnson asks you why, say Uncle Fred sent Red Feather to be fed."
"Come on!" called Russ to Laddie. "We'll go back to the house and talk some more to the Indian."
Laddie and Russ reached the house just as Red Feather arrived, for he walked slowly.
"So you're hungry, eh?" asked Bill Johnson, when the Indian had spoken to him. "Well, I guess I can feed you. Where did you come from, and where are you going?"
The Indian waved his hand toward the west, as if to say he had come from that direction, but where he was going he did not tell. Bill tried to talk to him in two or three different Indian dialects, but Red Feather shook his head.
He knew a little English, and his own talk, and that was all. But, every now and then, as he ate, he looked up at Laddie and Russ, who sat near, and said:
"You got more papoose?"
"I guess he wants to see the rest of you little Bunkers!" said Bill Johnson. "Maybe he heard there were several children here, and he wants to see all of you. Some Indians like children more than others. Yes, we have more papooses, Red Feather, though these are the biggest," and he pointed to Russ and Laddie.
"No got um so high?" asked the Indian, and he held his hand about a foot over the head of Russ. "Got papoose so big?"
"No, none of the six little Bunkers is as big as that," explained Bill Johnson. "Russ is the biggest. But what's the matter with your foot?" he asked Red Feather, for the Indian limped badly when he walked.