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But even if he chose to pretend that he didn't want cheechalko tobacco, it was very serious it was desperate to see all that Black Jack going on to the next village. Several of the hitherto silent bucks remonstrated with Peetka even one of the women dared raise her voice. She had not been able to go for fish: where was her tobacco and tea? Peetka burst into voluble defence of his position.
Peetka answered back as surly as ever. But the Boy went on, telling how the Shaman had cured Ol' Chief, and that turned out to be a surprisingly popular story. Peetka wouldn't interrupt it, even to curse the Leader for getting up and stretching himself.
Peetka roused himself, pulled out of his shirt a concave stone and a little woody-looking knot. The Boy leaned forward to see what it was. A piece of dried fungus the kind you sometimes see on the birches up here. Peetka was hammering a fragment of it into powder, with his heavy clasp-knife, on the concave stone.
He swept the particles into his pipe and applied to one of the fish-selling women for a match, lit up, and lounged back against the Leader, smiling disagreeably at the strangers. A little laugh at their expense went round the room. Oh, it wasn't easy to get ahead of Peetka!
Peetka came in late, bringing in the Nigger dog against the Nigger dog's will, just to tantalise the white men with the sight of something they couldn't buy from the poor Indian. Everybody made way for Peetka and his dog, except the other dog. Several people had to go to the assistance of the little boy to help him to hold Red.
Peetka stopped, considered, studied the scene immediately before him, and then the distant prospect. "You got dog?" He nodded. "Well, how much?" "Sixty dolla." "One dog, sixty?" He nodded. "But this man says the price is eighty for two." "My dog him Leader." After some further conversation, "Where is your dog?" demanded the Colonel. The new-comer whistled and called.
Casting occasional looks of disdain upon the strangers, he addressed most of his remarks to the owner of Red and Spotty. Although the Colonel could not understand a word, he saw the moment approaching when that person would go back on his bargain. With uncommon pleasure he could have throttled Peetka.
The Boy, to create a diversion, had begun talking to a young hunter in the front row about "the Long Trail," and, seeing that several others craned and listened, he spoke louder, more slowly, dropping out all unnecessary or unusual words. Very soon he had gained an audience and Peetka had lost one.
By-and-by, in spite of the limited English of the community, certain facts stood out: that Peetka held the white man in avowed detestation, that he was the leading spirit of the place, that they had all been suffering from a tobacco famine, and that much might be done by a judicious use of Black Jack and Long Green.
Peetka made remarks in Ingalik. "Father MacManus, him all right?" asked Kurilla, politely cloaking his cross-examination. "MacManus? Do you mean Wills, or the Superior, Father Brachet?" "Oh yes! MacManus at Tanana." He spoke as though inadvertently he had confused the names. As the strangers gave him the winter's news from Holy Cross, his wonder and astonishment grew.
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