"Ugh! The red-head kill deer. Two Arrows show him how. Good."
One of the miners had ridden out from the line of march and returned with another deer, so that fresh venison was plentiful in the camp. Two Arrows felt no longing for any more hunting that day, and he bluntly said so. It was ten times more to his liking to ride along with the train and keep his eyes busy. He was studying white men, and all the world knows what a curious study they are. One white boy was also studying him and his sister, and could not understand them at all. Sile's eyes and thoughts ran about over everything he heard or saw until he almost had a headache.
"Tell you what, father," he said to the judge, "when we go into camp again I'm going to show them my box."
"It's a curiosity box. Show it to them."
The road was necessarily somewhat rough, and wagoning was slow work, and before sunset a place was chosen for an all-night camp. Then came Sile's experiment. He hauled a stoutly-made, leather-covered trunk out of one of the wagons, before the eyes of Two Arrows and Na-tee-kah, and it was instantly evident that neither had ever seen one, but that both understood its use. He unstrapped it, but it did not open, and he made them try it. Lock and key were mysteries they had no thought of, and they almost started back with surprise when Sile pushed a thin bit of steel into one side of that contrivance and all the upper part of it could be tipped right over.
Sile's "box" would have been first-rate rummaging for any boy of his acquaintance, and it was a mine of wonders to the two young savages. He had put into it some things which could hardly be useful to him, even if he should be cast away upon a mountain, as Robinson Crusoe was upon an island, and it was so much the better fun for Two Arrows and Na-tee-kah. The fishing-hooks, lines, reel, etc., made the eyes of the former fairly dance, and Sile brought out a joint-rod and put it together, with a reel on, to show him how the machine worked. Two Arrows grew thoughtful over that affair.
"Big fish break him."
"No. Show you about that to-morrow morning."
"Ugh! ugh!" suddenly exclaimed Ha-ha-pah-no. "Red-head got squaw? Boy!"
He did look young to be married, but she was pointing straight at a brush and comb and some other articles which, to her notion, did not belong in the treasury of a young warrior. Sile at once explained that he used them himself, but there were several brushes and combs, and she added,