»Ay, ay, the secret is out!« said the old trapper, shaking his head like one
who congratulated himself on having mastered the mystery of some knotty
difficulty. »The lad has been in the grass for a cover; the fire has come upon
him, in his sleep, and having lost his horse, he has been driven to save himself
under that fresh hide of buffaloe. No bad invention when powder and flint were
wanting to kindle a ring! I warrant me, now, this is a clever youth, and one
that it would be safe to journey with! I will speak to him kindly, for anger can
at least serve no turn of ours. My brother is welcome, again,« using the
language which the other understood; »the Tetons have been smoking him, as they
would a raccoon.«
    The young Pawnee roll'd his eye over the place, as if he were examining the
terrific danger from which he had just escaped, but he disdained to betray the
smallest emotion, at its imminency. His brow contracted as he answered to the
remark of the trapper, by saying -
    »A Teton is a dog. When the Pawnee war-whoop is in their ears, the whole
nation howls.«
    »It is true. The imps are on our trail, and I am glad to meet a warrior with
the tomahawk in his hand, who does not love them. Will my brother lead my
children to his village? If the Siouxes follow on our path, my young men shall
help him to strike them.«
    The young Pawnee turned his eyes from one to another of the strangers, in a
keen scrutiny, before he saw fit to answer so important an interrogatory. His
examination of the males was short and apparently satisfactory. But his gaze was
fastened long and admiringly, as in their former interview, on the surpassing
and unwonted beauty of a being so fair and so unknown as Inez. Though his glance
wandered, for moments, from her countenance to the more intelligible and yet
extraordinary charms of Ellen, it did not fail to return promptly, to the study
of a creature, who, in the view of his unpractised eye and untutored
imagination, was formed with all that perfection, with which the youthful poet
is apt to endow the glowing images of his brain. Nothing so fair, so ideal, so
every way worthy to reward the courage and self devotion of a warrior had ever
before been encountered on the Prairies, and the young brave appeared to be
deeply and intuitively sensible to the influence of so rare a model