Head, who spoke the Algonquin dialect perfectly 85 well, bade him give some account of himself, and he replied, in a voice whose mildness scarcely fitted his fierce and repulsive appearance, that he had ridden down from his camp near Presque Isle (in Maine) to guide a Yankee fur-trader across the New Brunswick boundary, and had now been waiting two days on the chance of a similar job for his return journey.
“Who did you suppose would be likely to be going up there from here?” asked the soldier suspiciously.
“There are many French people who come from here to buy our furs. Is it not true?” The new guide turned fiercely on the Delawares for confirmation, and they nodded, making little effort to disguise their fear of him. Hitherto they had generally shown themselves cool-headed enough, but in the presence of this forest savage they seemed afraid to say that their souls were their own.
Head reflected that he was becoming very tired of the river, and further, that it might now be frozen hard any day. Moreover, it was but a roundabout way of travelling compared to the forest, which, being only of pine and spruce, offered none of the obstructions of the creeper-clad woods farther south. Could he hire or buy horses? he asked of a negro working close at hand. Ay, any number of them; mustangs were being brought over the boundary every day by enterprising Americans, and could be bought for a couple of pounds a head.
“Very well, then.” The Major turned to the Cree again. “Call for me at the inn to-morrow morning at nine, and I shall be ready to start.”
Arrangements were soon made as to horses, and 86 Head, who had not slept without his clothes for a week, and might not see a Christian bed for weeks to come, went off to his room, resolved upon at least one night’s good rest. Coming down to his breakfast in the morning, he found that his man had put out, cleaned, and loaded a pair of pistols for him.
“Beg pardon, Major; most disreputable-looking party that guide, sir.”
“Well—yes; we don’t want to know too many of his sort. We’ll keep an eye on him in case he has some idea of leading us into an ambush; but don’t let him imagine that we suspect him.”
Head had finished his breakfast and was strolling into the yard at the back of the house to see if the horses were ready, when a violent uproar arose in the bar, which was at the other end of the passage: women screaming and running hither and thither, loafers shouting and laughing. Yielding to natural curiosity, he turned back along this passage and was just in time to see a stranger sight than he had ever witnessed in all his six-and-thirty years. There, gesticulating, stammering, and struggling, was the terrible Indian of the day before, and, behind him, one hand firmly grasping his long hair, the other buffeting him liberally over head and ears, was the landlady—a sturdy Irishwoman—who was “helping him into the street,” at the same time expressing her opinion of him with great volubility. In her wake followed two chamber-maids, each armed with a mop, and from one of them the traveller learned that the Indian had already been forbidden to enter the house on account of his drunken and riotous behaviour there two days earlier.