"I thought your face was quite new to me," said Kenneth. "May I ask where you are from?"
"You kin ask, sir, and I haven't the least objection in life to tellin'. I've been huntin' and trappin' all through this Northwestern Territory, along the Ohio and the Little Miami, and away up north by the great lakes; and even as far as the head waters of the Mississippi. And I come back with a lot of furs and skins. Sold 'em mostly in Detroit."
"Ah!" exclaimed Kenneth, with interest. "You must have had an adventurous life, and fallen in with many tribes of Indians."
"Humph! yes, young man; saw a good deal more of the ugly, treacherous varmints than I cared to. I hain't no love for 'em, and no more have they for me."
"You have had some encounters with them?"
"More'n a few, stranger. I've taken their scalps, and been mighty near losin' my own; have been in their clutches several times, run the gauntlet twice, and would have been burnt at the stake if I hadn't made my escape. However, I haven't any more to tell than any other man that's been huntin' and trappin' for ten or a dozen years."
Kenneth invited him into his office, set food and drink before him, and by dint of adroit questioning drew from him a good deal of information in regard to the various tribes among whom he had been.
"Have you ever met with any whites living with them?" he asked at length.
"Yes, occasionally. There's Simon Gerty; I saw him, and he's a worse savage than the redskins."
"But any others? Any women?"