“Mum’ll get a new outfit. And so will Mary Justicia. An’ we can fix up all the others, the boys as well, I mean. It’s just great, Usak. You’re—you’re a wonder. How did you do it? Did you locate a bunch of Euralian robbers, an’—”
The Indian shook his head. But he offered no verbal denial. Truth to tell the girl’s curiosity and obvious desire for the story of his summer-long labours made no appeal to him. For all his satisfaction at the Kid’s readily expressed delight he had been robbed of more than half his joy of return by that final incident of his journey home. His passionate heart was full of a sort of crazy resentment at the presence of the outfit of white intruders on the river. And even as the girl talked and questioned he remained absorbed in, and nursing his bitter grievance.
His silence and lack of interest were too painfully obvious to be missed. And the Kid suddenly dropped to a seat on a box beside the beautiful fur she had laid aside.
“What is it, Usak?” she asked, with that quick return to the authority which existed between them. “Ther’s things worrying. I can see it in your face. Best tell it right away. Is it Clarence? Has he failed after the good things you hoped of him? Yes. Best tell it. I can stand things to-night with a clean up of trade like this around me.”
The Indian moved away. He squatted himself on an upturned sled awaiting repairs to its runners. And the girl watched him closely.
Young as she was there was much that the Kid understood instinctively. She had not spent all her childhood’s days with this great savage without learning something of his almost insanely passionate moods, and the potentialities of them. To her he was just a savage watch-dog, loyal from the crown of his black head to the soles of his moccasined feet. But she understood that his curious ferocity was none the less for it. There was one thing in him that never failed to stir her to some alarm. It was the narrowing of his black eyes, which, in his more violent moods, had a knack of closing to mere slits. His eyes were so closed just now.
While she waited for him to speak she watched him reach out and possess himself of his beloved rifle which had been stood against the wall of the leanto. He took it, and laid it across his knees, and his powerful fingers caressed the quaint old trigger-guard. It seemed to her that never in her life had she observed him in so ominous a mood.
“Well?” she demanded sharply, and her alarm added a strident ring to her voice.
The man looked up.
“You mak him this question?” he demanded, without softening. “This thing I mak to myself. Oh, yes. It for me. I feel him all here,” he beat his chest with one clenched fist to indicate his bosom. “I mak him no say. Not nothing. Clarence him big whiteman. Much good trail man. So. I mak you big trade. Plenty food come next year. Plenty good thing much. So. You lak him? Oh, yes. It good. Then why you mak him this question?”