wish to
resume the interrupted discourse, and of his own pacific intentions. The
quick eye of the stranger was not slow to note the action, but it
was not until a sufficient time had passed to allow him to debate the
prudence of the measure in his own mind, that he seemed willing to trust
himself again, so near a party that was so much superior to himself in
physical power, and consequently one that was able, at any instant, to
command his life, or control his personal liberty. When he did approach
nigh enough to converse with facility, it was with a singular mixture of
haughtiness and of distrust.

"It is far to the village of the Loups," he said, stretching his arm in
a direction contrary to that in which, the trapper well knew, the tribe
dwelt, "and the road is crooked. What has the Big-knife to say?"

"Ay, crooked enough!" muttered the old man in English, "if you are to
set out on your journey by that path, but not half so winding as the
cunning of an Indian's mind. Say, my brother; do the chiefs of the
Pawnees love to see strange faces in their lodges?"

The young warrior bent his body gracefully, though but slightly, over
the saddle-bow, as he replied--

"When have my people forgotten to give food to the stranger?"

"If I lead my daughters to the doors of the Loups, will the women take
them by the hand; and will the warriors smoke with my young men?"

"The country of the Pale-faces is behind them. Why do they journey so
far towards the setting sun? Have they lost the path, or are these the
women of the white warriors, that I hear are wading up the river of 'the
troubled waters?'"

"Neither. They, who wade the Missouri, are the warriors of my great
father, who has sent them on his message; but we are peace-runners. The
white men and the red are neighbours, and they wish to be friends.--Do
not the Omahaws visit the Loups, when the tomahawk is buried in the path
between the two nations?"

"The Omahaws are welcome."

"And the Yanktons, and the burnt-wood Tetons, who live in the elbow of
the river, 'with muddy water,' do they not come into the lodges of the
Loups and smoke?"

"The Tetons are liars!" exclaimed the other. "They dare not shut their
eyes in the night. No; they sleep in the sun. See," he added, pointing
with fierce triumph to the frightful ornaments of his leggings, "their
scalps are so plenty, that the Pawnees tread on them! Go; let a Sioux
live in banks of snow; the plains and buffaloes are f