If the Indian’s looks were serious before, they became indescribably solemn now.
“Big Otter felt,” he replied with bated breath, “like bags of shot—heavy like the great stones. He could scarcely move; all his joints were stiff. Food was no longer pleasant to his tongue. When he tried to swallow, it would not remain, but came forth again. He felt a wish to drink up the river. His head had an evil spirit inside which squeezed the brain and tried to burst open the skull. His eyes, also, were swelled up so that he could hardly see, and his nose was two times more big than the day before.”
“That must have been an awful size, Big Otter, considering the size of it by nature! And what d’ye think was the cause of it all?”
As this question involved thought, the Indian smoked his pipe in silence for some time, staring for inspiration into the fire.
“It must have been,” he at length replied, “hunting with his fathers before the right time had come. Big Otter was not dead, and he chased the deer too much, perhaps, or fought too much. It may be that, having only his earth-body, he ate too much.”
“Don’t ye think it’s just possible,” suggested Macnab, “that, having only your earth-body, you drank too much?”
“Waugh!” replied the red-man. Then, after a few minutes’ devotion to the pipe, he added, “Big Otter would like very much to taste the fire-water again.”
“It’s well for you, my boy,” returned the other, “that you can’t get it in these regions, for if you could you’d soon be in the happy hunting-grounds (or the other place) without your earth-body.”
At this point the Highlander became more earnest, and treated his companion to what would have passed in civilised lands for a fair temperance lecture, in which he sought to describe graphically the evils of strong drink. To this the Indian listened with the most intense attention and an owlish expression, making no audible comment whatever—with the exception, now and then, of an emphatic “Waugh!” but indicating his interest by the working of his features and the glittering of his great eyes. Whether the reasoning of Macnab had much influence at that time could not be ascertained, for he was yet in the middle of one of his most graphic anecdotes when the Indian’s owlish eyes shut with a suddenness that was quite startling, and he roused himself just in time to prevent his chin from dropping on his chest.
“Waugh!” he exclaimed with a slightly-confused look.