“Yis,” spoke up Pat, “there be but wan way to aven accounts wid such spalpeens as thim Frinch trappers, who make most av their livin’ stalin’ from the traps av honest min; and that is by diskiverin’ the same in some ugly thrick, an’ wastin’ a precious bit av lead.”
“Here comes Blue Jacket to see you, mother,” said Bob.
“Oh!” broke in Sandy, “if you could only have seen him when he was telling that war-loving Little Turtle how much he was in debt to the Armstrong family, it would have done you good, mother. Of course we didn’t just understand all they said; but Pat could, and he told us how Blue Jacket was declaring he would lay down his life for any one of us, if the need arose. He said you attended to his hurt just as if he were your own son.”
It could be easily understood, after that, what a warm welcome greeted the young Shawanee brave when he strode into their midst. Doubtless it was pleasant to him to know that they thought so much of him; but he did not betray this fact even by a smile. An Indian learns from childhood to repress all outward evidence of feeling springing either from joy or pain. Anger alone will he allow himself to show, and that only because it excites his ardor for the battlefield or to follow the trail of his enemy.
Sandy was waiting to spring something upon the young Shawanee brave. He had asked his father for the arrow which had been shot so as to drop directly on the roof of the Armstrong cabin. This he suddenly laid before Blue Jacket.
“You, who can tell the different arrow-points, and the way of feathering the shaft, of every tribe along the Ohio, look at this, and say whose was the hand that drew the bow from which it came,” Sandy went on to say.
Blue Jacket looked gravely at the flint tip that was bound in the cleft of the straight shaft with strong fibres taken from some plant. There must have been signs that immediately informed him as to what tribe the party belonged who had made that arrow. ([Note 7.])
“Ugh! Delaware arrow, him,” grunted Blue Jacket; and no one dreamed of disputing his simple assertion; indeed, Pat O’Mara was seen to wag his head in a satisfied way, as though that declaration exactly coincided with his own private opinion.
“So, you see,” remarked Sandy, with an air of triumph, turning on his brother, “I always said I believed it was an Indian who sent those queer messages; but why do you suppose he does it? The Delawares as a rule are not in love with the white settlers. When a colony is attacked there are generally Delawares among the reds who creep up to surprise the poor settlers. Why should a Delaware want to do us a good turn; tell me that, Bob?”
“Well, now, I am just as much in the dark as you are,” returned Bob; “unless that was a Delaware youth you rescued, Sandy, from that horrible quicksand late in the autumn on that day you went out hunting alone.”