have been froze to death with Simon Kenton and a few of the
other boys if it hadn't been for this copper-colored rascal--ain't that
so, Deerfoot?"

And that the young warrior might not err as to the one who was expected
to impart light on the subject, Burt gave him a resounding whack on the
shoulder that almost knocked him off the log. The youth was in the act
of conveying some of the meat to his mouth when saluted in that fashion,
and it came like the shock of an earthquake.

"Why can't you talk with a fellow," asked Kellogg, "without breaking his
neck?"

"Whose neck is broke?"

"Why that fellow's is pretty well jarred."

"Well, as long as _he_ don't object I don't see what it is to _you_,"
was the good-natured response of Hawkins, who resumed chewing the juicy
meat.

"Some of these days, somebody will give you a whack in return when you
ain't expecting it, and it will be a whack too that will cure you of
that sort of business. I believe, Deerfoot, that you are a Shawanoe,
ain't you?"

"Deerfoot is a Shawanoe," was the answer, his jaws at work on the food
just furnished him.

"I've heard tell of you; you're the chap that always uses a bow and
arrow instead of a gun?"

The youth answered the query by a nod of the head. As he did so, Tom
Crumpet, who sat further away, vigorously working his jaws, uttered a
contemptuous grunt. Kit turned his head and looked inquiringly at him.

"Maybe you think he can't use the bow and arrow. I s'pose, Deerfoot,
that's the bow you fired the arrow through the window of the block-house
that was nigh a hundred yards off, with a letter tied around it, and
fired it agin out on the flatboat with another piece of paper twisted
around it--isn't that so?"

Despite his loose-jointed sentences, Deerfoot caught his meaning well
enough to nod his head in the affirmative.

"Did you see it done?" asked Crumpet, with a grin at Hawkins.

"How could I see it when I wasn't there?"

"I guess no one else was there," growled Tom; "I've noticed whenever
that sort of business is going on it's always a good ways off, and the
people as sees it are the kind that don't amount to much in the way of
telling the truth."

These were irritating words, made more so by the contemptuous manner in
which they were spoken. Deerfoot clearly understood their meaning, but
he showed no offence because of them. He was not vain of his wonderful
skill in woodcraft, and, though he had a fiery temper, which sometime