Nick nodded.
“We’ll fin’ that crittur, sure,” he said.
And he sat gazing upon the pictures his mind conjured up as he watched the flaming logs. In every tongue of flame he beheld the glowing face Victor had told them of, and, as the smoke rolled up into the black vault of night, he seemed to see the elusive form of the White Squaw floating in its midst. Ralph’s slower imagination was less fantastically, but no less deeply, stirred.
At daybreak they sought Man-of-the-Snow-Hill’s lodge. They found him a grizzled wreck of extreme age. He was surrounded by his medicine-men, his young chiefs and his squaws. And by the gathering in the smoke-begrimed hut they knew that their approach had been made known.
Perfect silence reigned as the white men entered. An Indian silence; such silence as it would be hard to find anywhere but in the primitive dwelling. The atmosphere of the place was heavy with the pungent odours of Killi-ka-nik. Both men and women were smoking it in pipes of red clay with reed stems, and they passed this sign of friendship from one to another in solemn fashion. All were clad in the parti-coloured blanket, and sat hunched upon their quarters more like beasts than human creatures, yet with that perfect air of dignity which the Indian seldom loses.
Man-of-the-Snow-Hill alone differed in his dress and attitude. He was wrapped in a large buffalo robe, and was stretched out upon a pile of skins to ease his rheumatics, while, spread out before him, were a number of charms and much “med’cine,” which had been so set by his wise men to alleviate his ailments. In the centre of the throng a fire smouldered, and the smoke therefrom rose sullenly upon the dense air and drifted out through a hole in the flat roof. Man-of-the-Snow-Hill blinked his watery eyes as the strangers entered, and passed his pipe to his favourite squaw, a buxom, sleepy-eyed beauty who sat upon his right. Then he grunted intelligently as he saw the visitors deposit their pile of presents upon the floor, and, in the manner of the neche, seat themselves beside it.
Ralph spoke his greeting in Indian fashion.
“How,” he said.
“How!” replied Man-of-the-Snow-Hill, in a thin, reedy voice. And his followers echoed the sentiment in chorus.
Then the aged chief held out his hand in further greeting. And each neche in turn shook the white men by the hand.