“You friend, then?” remarked the corporal, extending his hand.
“Yes, me friend,” he answered promptly, brightening up and taking the proffered hand; “you give 'em boat?”
“Do you see any thing green in my eye?” asked the Virginian, incapable, even under the circumstances, of repressing the indulgence of his humor.
But the party questioned, although speaking a little English, was not sufficiently initiated in its elegancies to comprehend this; so, he merely answered with a “ugh!” while the greater portion of the men laughed boisterously, both at the wit of the corporal, and at the seeming astonishment it excited.
This mirth by no means suited the humor of the Indian. He felt that it was directed towards himself, and again he stood fierce, and with a dilating frame before them.
Corporal Nixon at once became sensible of his error. To affront one of the friendly chiefs would, he knew, not only compromise the interests of the garrison, but incur the severe displeasure of the commanding officer, who had always enjoined the most scrupulous abstinence from any thing offensive to them.
“I only meant to say,” he added, as he again extended his hand. “I can't give 'em boat, White chief,” and he pointed in the direction of the Fort, “no let me.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed the Indian, his stern features again brightening up with a last hope. “'Spose come with Injin?”
For a moment or two, the corporal hesitated whether or not to put the man across, but when he reflected on the singular manner of his advent, and other circumstances connected with his appearance among them, his customary prudence came to his aid, and while avoiding all ground for offence by his mode of refusal, he gave him peremptorily to understand that there was an order against his suffering the boat to leave its present station.
Again the countenance of the Indian fell, even while his quick eye rolled incessantly from one to the other of the group. “You no give 'em boat—Injin swim,” he at length observed.