"Absolutely, Bulldog; that's why you're going. You're going to kiss somebody on both cheeks, pat him on the back, and say, 'Here's a good cigar for you'—you love it. What's happened?"
"The Stonies are on the war-path."
"Ugly devils—part Sioux. They're hunters—blood letters—first cousins to the Kilkenny cats. In the rebellion, a few years ago, only for the Wood Crees they'd have murdered every white prisoner that came into their hands."
"Yes, they're peppery devils. In the Frog Lake massacre one of them, Itcka, killed a white man or two and was hanged for it."
"What started them now?" FitzHerbert asked. "Whisky."
FitzHerbert stole a glance at Carney's stolid face; then he whistled; Carney's word had been like a gasp of confession, for, undoubtedly, the liquor was from the car.
"How did they make the haul?" he asked.
"The Stonies have just had their Treaty Payment, and there's a new regulation that they may go off the reserve at Morley to make their Fall hunt in the mountains, at this time; they were on their way, under Chief Standing Bear, when they ran into the gent we've just met and his mates in the Vermillion Valley. George was running two loads of whisky up to the lumber camps."
"Great! that combination—lumberjacks, Stonies, and Whisky; it would be as if sheol had opened a chute—there'll be murder."
"I know Standing Bear; he made me a blood brother of his. I did him a bit of a turn. I was coming through the Flathead Valley once, and the old fellow had insulted a grizzly. The grizzly was peeved, for the Stoney had peppered a couple of silly bullets into the brute's shoulder. I happened to get in a lucky shot and stopped the silver-tip when he was about to shampoo old Standing Bear."