ndians were not an entirely new sight to George, but the few who occasionally came to Greenway were quite different from the thriftless, lazy, peaceable individuals and remnants of tribes that remained in remote parts of lower Virginia. There was an Indian village of forty or fifty in a piece of wild country about ten miles from Ferry Farm, but they were not dangerous, except to hen-roosts and pigsties; and although the men talked grandiloquently of the time when their fore-fathers owned the land and lived by hunting, they seemed perfectly satisfied themselves to sit and bask in the sun, smoking tobacco of the squaws' raising, and living upon grain raised by the same hard-working squaws.
But the first Indian that he saw at Greenway was altogether unlike these, and in George's eyes vastly more respectable. He came one morning, just as George and Lord Fairfax had walked out on the porch after breakfast. He strode up the path, carrying on his shoulder the dressed carcass of a deer. He was of medium height, but so superbly made and muscular that the heavy carcass seemed as light as a feather. He stalked up to the porch, and throwing the carcass down, folded his arms with an air of supreme indifference, and waited to be addressed.
"For sale?" asked the Earl.
The Indian nodded his head without speaking. Lord Fairfax called to Lance to bring his purse. Lance in a few minutes appeared, and the instant his eyes fell upon the Indian his countenance changed. Not so the Indian's, who stood looking him squarely in the eye with characteristic stolidity.
The Earl counted out some money and offered it to the Indian, who took it with a grunt of satisfaction.
"Now," said the Earl, "take the carcass to the kitchen, where you will find something to eat if you wish."
The Indian showed his familiarity with English by picking up the carcass and disappearing around the corner with it. As soon as he was out of hearing, Lance said to the Earl:
"If you please, sir, that Injun, who pretends to be a squaw-man, is no less than Black Bear, one of the most bloodthirsty devils I ever knew. He was in the thick of the last attack they made on us, and I'll warrant, sir, if I could turn his blanket back from his right shoulder I would find a hole made by a musket-ball I sent at him. It disabled him, but I can see the rascal now walking away just as coolly as if I had tickled him with a feather instead of hitting him with a lead bullet. He never in the world brought that carcass over the mountains; that is not in his line. There is more of Black Bear's sort hereabouts; you may depend on it, sir."
Lord Fairfax shrugged his shoulders.
"We are prepared for defence if they come at us; but I shall have to depend upon you, Lance, to give us warning." And the Earl went quietly back to his library.