.«
    »The skin of the traveller is white,« said the young native laying a finger
impressively on the hard and wrinkled hand of the trapper, »does his heart say
one thing and his tongue another?«
    »The Wahcondah of a white-man has ears, and he shuts them to a lie. Look at
my head; it is like a frosted pine, and must soon be laid in the ground. Why
then should I wish to meet the Great Spirit, face to face, while his countenance
is dark upon me.«
    The Pawnee gracefully threw his shield over one shoulder, and placing a hand
on his chest he bent his head in deference to the gray locks exhibited by the
trapper, after which his eye became more steady and his countenance less fierce.
Still he maintained every appearance of a distrust and watchfulness that were
rather tempered and subdued than forgotten. When this equivocal species of amity
was established between the warrior of the Prairies and the experienced old
trapper, the latter proceeded to give his directions to Paul, concerning the
arrangements of the contemplated halt. While Inez and Ellen were dismounting and
Middleton and the bee-hunter were attending to their comforts, the discourse was
continued, sometimes in the language of the natives, but often as Paul and the
Doctor mingled their opinions with the two principal speakers, in the English
tongue. There was a keen and subtle trial of skill between the Pawnee and the
trapper, in which each endeavored to discover the objects of the other, without
betraying his own interest in the investigation. As might be expected when the
struggle was between adversaries so equal, the result of the encounter answered
the expectations of neither. The latter had put all the interrogatories his
ingenuity and practice could suggest concerning the state of the tribe of the
Loups, their crops, their store of provisions for the coming winter and their
relations with their different warlike neighbors, without extorting any answer,
that, in the slightest degree, elucidated the reason why he found a solitary
warrior so far from his people. On the other hand, while the questions of the
Indian were far more dignified and delicate, they were equally ingenious. He
commented on the state of the trade in peltries; spoke of the good or ill
success of many white hunters whom he had either encountered or heard named, and
even alluded to the steady march, which the nation of his Great Father as he
courteously termed the government of the States, was making towards the
hunting-grounds of his tribe. It was apparent, however, by this singular mixture
of interest, contempt and indignation that