“Well, I reckon,” he said, picking up his knife, and resuming his whittling, but in a less absorbed manner, “I meant no harm, but merely that Loup Garou can nose an Injin better than ere a one of us.”
“Nose an Indian better than any one of us! Well, perhaps he can—he sees them every day, but what has that to do with his whining and growling just now?”
“Well, I'll tell you, Boss, what I mean, more plain-like. You know that patch of wood borderin' on the prairie, where you set me to cut, t'other day?”
“I do. What of that?”
“Well, then, this mornin' I was cuttin' down as big an oak as ever grew in Michigan, when, as it went thunderin' through the branches, with noise enough to scare every buffalo within a day's hunt, up started, not twenty yards from it's tip, ten or a dozen or so of Injins, all gruntin' like pigs, and looking as fierce as so many red devils. They didn't look quite pleasant, I calcilate.”
“Indeed,” remarked Mr. Heywood, musingly; “a party of Pottawattamies I presume, from the Fort. We all know there is a large encampment of them in the neighborhood, but they are our friends.”
“May-be so,” continued Ephraim Giles, “but these varmint didn't look over friendly, and then I guess the Pottawattamies don't dress in war paint, 'cept when they dance for liquor.”
“And are you quite sure these Indians were in their war paint?” asked his master, with an ill-concealed look of anxiety.
“No mistake about it,” replied Giles, still whittling, “and I could almost swear, short as the squint was I got of 'em, that they were part of those who fought us on the Wabash, two years ago.”
“How so, den, you are here, Gile. If dey wicked Injin, how you keep your funny little cap, an' your scalp under de cap?”