“No, not exactly; but through an old man of the tribe, who is well affected towards us, I have learned that there is a party among them who seem bent on mischief.”
“Then we may expect a row some day or other. That’s pleasant!—What think you, Hammy?” said Harry, turning to his friend.
“I think that it would be anything but pleasant,” he replied; “and I sincerely hope that we shall not have occasion for a row.”
“You’re not afraid of a fight, are you, Hamilton?” asked Charley.
The peculiarly bland smile with which Hamilton usually received any remark that savoured of banter overspread his features as Charley spoke, but he merely replied,—“No, Charley, I’m not afraid.”
“Do you know any of the Indians who are so anxious to vent their spleen on our worthy bourgeois?” asked Harry, as he seated himself on a rocky eminence commanding a view of the richly-wooded slopes, dotted with huge masses of rock that had fallen from the beetling cliffs behind the creek.
“Yes, I do,” replied Charley; “and, by the way, one of them—the ringleader—is a man with whom you are acquainted, at least by name. You’ve heard of an Indian called Misconna?”
“What!” exclaimed Harry, with a look of surprise; “you don’t mean the blackguard mentioned by Redfeather, long ago, when he told us his story on the shores of Lake Winnipeg—the man who killed poor Jacques’s young wife?”
“The same,” replied Charley.
“And does Jacques know he is here?”