Buffalo Bill gave him a keen look, scrutinizing him closely by the leaping light of the camp fire.
“Why keep up the pretense?” he said.
The man effected not to understand him. “What Long Hair do here?” he repeated, spreading out his hands to indicate that he meant to ask what Buffalo Bill was doing in that region of the country.
“Talk like the white man you are, and then maybe I’ll answer you!” was the sharp answer.
The man laughed, and cast aside his Indian pretensions.
“Your eyes are good, Cody!”
“I knew you were a white man as soon as I saw you. I’m too familiar with the walk and manner of Indians to be fooled that way. Besides, when you were groaning there, your every action was that of a white man.”
“When I get hold of that horse again I’ll beat his brains out!” the man fumed. “He came near killing me. He’s your brute, I think?”
“Oh, no; he belongs to the man who escaped a while ago.”
“To that old fool? You were riding him!”