"What sort of lessons?" asked Dick.
"You see the way he dreats his squawk?" continued Fritz, adding syllables to his vocabulary.
"I don't see him doing anything but ordering and bossing her around."
"It you vould like, perhabs, to be the head of dot houses you and Ben's sister is going to have——"
Here Fritz dogged a pine cone and hid safely behind a tree, while Dick searched vainly for more missiles.
"I vill be goot," yelled Fritz, enjoying Dick's confusion immensely, "and nefer speak of such things any more."
"If you'll promise," said Dick, "I will forgive you this time."
At that Fritz came out from behind his tree, and linking arms with Dick they sauntered off to one of the fires. The chief was seated beside this blaze, watching the final preparations for his meal, and he motioned the boys to join him.
"Um white boys eat with Telca," he said, and Dick was pleased to find that he knew so much English, for he knew that mutual explanations and possible plans would have to be gone over by both of them, and his own ignorance of this band's peculiar dialect prevented their carrying on any extended conversation in the red-man's tongue.