Hare gave me good evening with much courtesy and self-possession. Hiakatoo, also, extended a muscular hand, which I was obliged to take or be outdone in civilized usage by a savage.
"Well, sir," says Hare in his frank, misleading manner, "the last o' the sugar is a-boiling, I hear, and spring plowing should begin this week."
Neither he nor Hiakatoo had as much interest in husbandry as two hoot-owls, nor had they any knowledge of it, either; but I replied politely, and, at their request, gave an account of my glebe at Fonda's Bush.
"There is game in that country," remarked Hiakatoo in the Seneca dialect.
Instantly it entered my head that his remark had two interpretations, and one very sinister; but his painted features remained calmly inscrutable and perhaps I had merely imagined the dull, hot gleam that I thought had animated his sombre eyes.
"There is game in the Bush," said I, pleasantly,—"deer, bear, turkeys, and partridges a-drumming the long roll all day long. And I have seen a moose near Lake Desolation."
Now I had replied to the Seneca in the Canienga dialect; and he might interpret in two ways my reference to bears, and also what I said concerning the drumming of the partridges.
But his countenance did not change a muscle, nor did his eyes. And as for Hare, he might not have understood my play upon words, for he seemed interested merely in a literal interpretation, and appeared eager to hear about the moose I had seen near Lake Desolation.
So I told him I had watched two bulls fighting in the swamp until the older beast had been driven off.
"Civilization, too, will soon drive away the last of the moose from Tryon," quoth Hare.