This was going too far for safety, and Big Scalper turned upon his loquacious showman. He was too much an artist to spoil the play by proclaiming it a sham, so he spoke a few rapid words in Gaelic. The Murphy's knowledge of that language was naturally limited, but there was never a boy in Glenoro school, be his nationality what it might, who did not pick up much of the war-vocabulary of the Fighting MacDonalds, and Dan had no difficulty in gathering from Scotty's remark that he was being strongly advised to immediately shut his mouth.
"What's he sayin'?" inquired the subaltern interestedly.
Dan's face was a study in pained and polite anxiety.
"I'm askin' yer pardon, sir," he said nervously, "but I think it would be safer if ye wouldn't be lookin' at him anny longer. He's askin' me which o' yer scalps I think would look best danglin' from his belt!"
There was a shout of long-suppressed laughter from the on-looking Canadians, and the young officer's face flamed up angrily.
"I shall report you for this insolence!" he cried, suddenly awakening to his ignominious position.
But his friend caught his arm and drew him away.
"Come out of this, Bob!" he cried in a choking voice. "You'll report nothing! You'd better not monkey with those fellows. That young Irish ruffian was improvising as he went along. And I'm awfully sorry, Bobby dear, but I'm afraid I've won my bet," he added, allowing his laughter to overcome him, "because—because—oh, Holy Maria, hold me up, I'm going to die!—because Big Scalper speaks a language that's amazingly like the stuff the pipers of the Black Watch jabber to one another!"
As Scotty moved down to the landing he gave his tormentor a good-humoured shaking. "It's lots of fun, I know, Dan; but you'd better keep that long, Irish tongue of yours still before the officers, or you'll get into trouble. I don't know what that fellow's going to do."
"Be jabers, it would be worth pickin' oakum for a year jist to take down his blamed consate. Did ye iver see such a banty rooster as the young wasp was? The little sailor chap wasn't half bad. And, say, Scot, did ye hear him say he was a Canadian or from Canady, or somethin' like that? It accounts for his good manners."