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Attick and his new ally had then dogged us to Sunny Creek the village at which we had arrived and, finding that we no longer feared danger from hostile Indians, and had relaxed our vigilance, they had made up their minds to stay there patiently till the deed could be accomplished.
"Attick is always well mounted," replied Big Otter; "but his men may not be so well off, and women are difficult to urge on when they are unwilling." "Then you have no doubt that we shall overtake them?" I asked. "We must overtake them," was the laconic reply.
I suppose he is a great medicine-man, and holds intercourse with the spirit-world." Big Otter paused thoughtfully a few seconds, and then continued: "When he was putting these things in his breast, Waboose caught sight of Attick among the bushes, and pointed him out. Muxbee sprang up and levelled his gun with the two pipes at him, but did not fire. Attick fled and they saw him no more."
I went to one of the windows and, imitating Attick, flattened my nose against a pane. A pain was the immediate result, for, the glass being intensely cold, I was obliged to draw back promptly.
He mistook her silence and her downcast eyes for indications of submission, and did not doubt that the delicate-looking and shrinking girl was of much the same spirit as the other women of his tribe. Great, then, was his astonishment when he saw the Saxon blood in her veins rush to her fair brow, while she gazed at him steadily with her large blue eyes, and said "The tongue of Attick is forked.
"Does my father not know?" said Big Otter, deferentially, "that Attick plans mischief against the pale-faces of Wichikagan?" "No, Big Otter," returned the old chief with a scowl; "Muskrat does not know that, but he hears, and if it is true he will have Attick flayed alive, and his skin dressed to make moccasins for our young squaws." "It is true," rejoined Big Otter, sternly.
Attick promptly put the tobacco down and looked at Lumley with a scowl, but the pale-face chief was smilingly giving some advice to the man, with whom he was trading. He thought that the man would not attempt anything more of a similar kind, at least at that time, but he was mistaken. He under-estimated the force of covetousness and the power of temptation in a savage.
The interpreter, the pale-face, has stolen it," returned the Indian fiercely. Instead of replying, Lumley vaulted lightly over the counter, stood before the astonished Attick, thrust his hand into the bosom of that savage, and, by main force, dragged forth the thieving fist still closed over the missing packet.
"Waboose told me," he said. "Does the daughter of Weeum the Good hold communion with evil spirits?" asked the old chief, with a slight elevation of the eyebrows. "Not willingly, but evil spirits force themselves upon the daughter of Weeum the Good. My father knows that Attick is presumptuous. He wishes to mate Waboose."
At these words, that agitated, skairt man rushed right upstairs, I a-follerin' him, summer-savory still in my hands, and fear and tremblin' in my mean. And I see him dash up to the old bedstead in the attick, dash off the bedclothes and the feather-bed, and beginnin' oncordin' of it. I then laid hands on him, and commanded him to desist. "I won't desist," sez he, "I won't desist."
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