"Would you not like to have one?"

"Papoose come plenty soon."

"Then you have a wife."

"Got squaw;" but still he looked out impassively over the water.

"Would she like to keep a child for me? do you think?--good pay, you know."

"Pay-Ouff?" The words was clearly interrogative now, and the beady eyes returned from their wandering, and settled on the speaker.

"A healthy child twelve months old--would make a lusty squaw. She can make anything of it she likes. No questions will be asked, you know."

"Yours?"

"Not exactly. But I have an interest in the child."

"How much money?"