He came and stood by Leander Maybob, and the hunter looked from one to the other in astonishment.
He was scarcely four feet in hight, the top of his head barely reaching the giant’s waist.
His apparel resembled that of his more portly companion, with the exception of the covering for the head and feet.
The dwarf’s round little pate was surmounted by a grotesquely broad-brimmed wool hat, and he appeared, as his small keen eyes flashed quick, nervous glances about, not unlike the traditional “toad under a cabbage-leaf,” while his lower extremities were adorned by a pair of nicely-fitting deer-skin moccasins.
“He’s my little brother,” the giant said, by way of introduction. “We’re the Maybob twins. We ain’t much alike you see. He’s a little mite of a feller, and I’m big enough to be his daddy; he’s dumb—can’t speak a word—and I’m a nat’ral talker. Now uncle Peter said as how he thought ’twasn’t hardly fair, makin’ me so big and so complete in every way, and him so little and scarce; but says daddy, says he—and he was a univarsal smart man daddy was—says he it’s all in the family, and they’ll both together make a couple of middlin’ good-sized men—they’ll about average, and it’s all in the family. My little brother’s name’s Alonphilus. But if we’re different in sich respects, we’re alike as fur as the one great principle of our lives goes. Ain’t we, ’Lon?”
There was a scintillant glow in the dwarf’s little black eyes as he nodded assent.
CHAPTER VI.
OUT IN THE STORM.
Trembling herself with a fear all the more terrible because of its vagueness and uncertainty, and with her beautiful face pale as death, Vinnie stood and watched the trembling of the heavy cabin door, as the scratching noise was repeated for a third time.
The sound was louder, more imperative than before.
The chief seemed suddenly to arouse from the state of frightened inactivity into which he had fallen, and rising on his feet, walked, or rather staggered, toward the shaking door.