"What say to her?"
"I don't know. She'll tell me. She'll tell you if you ask her."
"Ugh! No. Red Wolf is a warrior. Not want any squaw talk about pictures. You ask Rita some things?"
"What things?"
"Make the talking leaves tell where all blue-coat soldiers go. All that camped here. Know then whether we follow 'em."
"Maybe they won't tell."
"Burn some. The rest talk then. White man's leaves not want to tell about white man. Rita must make them talk. Old braves in camp say they know. Many times the talking leaves tell the pale-faces all about Indians. I Tell where go. Tell what do. Tell how to find and kill. Bad medicine."
The "old braves" of many an Indian band have puzzled their heads over the white man's way of learning things and sending messages to a distance, and Red Wolf's ideas had nothing unusual in them. If the talking leaves could say anything at all, they could be made to tell a chief and his warriors the precise things they wanted to know.
Ni-ha-be's talk with her brother lasted until he pointed to the camp fire, where Many Bears was resting after his first attack upon the results of Mother Dolores's cookery.
"Great chief eat. Good time talk to him. Go now."