“My son speaks truly,” added the father in as perfect English. “This brave young pale-face is no longer a greenhorn. He who kills a grizzly in this manner is a hero; and he who does it to save those who climb trees deserves thanks, not insults. Let us go to visit the pale-faces that have come into our dominion.”
They were but three, and did not know how many we numbered, but that never occurred to them. With slow and dignified strides they went out of the thicket, we following.
Then for the first time Intschu-Tschuna saw the surveying instruments standing as we had left them, and, stopping suddenly, he turned to me, demanding: “What is this? Are the pale-faces measuring the land?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Why?”
“For a railroad.”
His eyes lost their calmness, and he asked sternly: “Do you obey these people, and measure with them?”
“Yes.”
“And are paid for it?”
“Yes.”