"Shut up," advised Connear dryly.
"Salt Rat," Three Feathers sent back, stamping in impotent rage, "there is no place for you here in the forest. Get away to your Big Waters."
He emphasized his language with a swift-thrown palmful of slimy sand, which struck the ex-sailor squarely in the eyes. Connear roared like a bull and leaped ashore from his birch-bark craft.
"You bloomin' copper-hide," he bellowed in blind wrath, "I'll man-handle you for that."
Three Feathers was swift, but in anger Pete Connear was swifter. Almost before the young chief realized it the sailor was upon him. The Cree's wrists were pinned behind his back in the grip of Pete's left hand; he was whirled over the sailor's knee and given as sound a spanking as ever a recalcitrant child received.
Connear's palm was hard with years of searing brine; and Three Feathers was blessed with no stoicism. He howled pitifully, while the Hudson's Bay men shouted in uproarious mirth.
But the young bucks of the crowd failed to see the humor of the situation. They gathered together with much muttering and gesturing. Dunvegan, shaking with laughter at the plight of Three Feathers, caught the signs of impending trouble and came running forward as Connear completed his enemy's chastisement.
"There!" exclaimed the bespattered Pete. "I've slippered your hide, and now I'll roll you in the scuppers just for sailor's luck!" He shot Three Feathers from his knee and sent him rolling down the bank into the river, from which the young man pulled himself out as bedraggled as a fur-soaked beaver.
The Cree bucks charged on the instant at the lone sailorman, but Dunvegan's arm waved as he ran, and like magic his men were out of their canoes and lined up on the river margin with guns at full cock. Connear danced a sailor's hornpipe in the center and hooted in delightful anticipation of a fight.
The crisis seemed inevitable. A trade-gun barked in the rear. The braves, with murder in their untamed hearts, shook out their weapons ready to throw their weight against Dunvegan's line, but a deep-throated Cree voice held them on the verge of their madness.