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Updated: June 20, 2025
I'll have to go to the rescue." In a few seconds Paul Bevan was having his own arm almost dislocated by the friendly shake of the trapper's hand, for, although fond of solitude, Mahoghany Drake was also fond of human beings, and especially of old friends. "Glad to see you, gentlemen," he said, in a low, soft voice, when introduced by Paul to the travellers.
Next instant Unaco leaped to his feet and, with a terrific yell of defiance, bounded into the bushes. Tom Brixton followed him like an arrow, and so prompt was Mahoghany Drake to act that he and Tom came into violent collision as they cleared the circle of light thrown by the few sinking embers of the camp-fires. No damage, however, was done.
Mahoghany Drake, on the contrary, spoke Indian fluently, and it must be understood that in the discourses which he delivered to the two boys he mixed up English and Indian in an amazing compound which served to render him intelligible to both, but which, for the reader's sake, we feel constrained to give in the trapper's ordinary English.
"Tell me about your adventure at the time you jumped the gap, Mahoghany," begged little Trevor, when the first volume of smoke arose from their fire and went straight up like a pillar into the calm air. "Not now, lad. Work first, talk afterwards. That's my motto." "But work is over now the fire lighted and the kettle on," objected Tolly.
"I'm in your power, you see," he said, laying his rifle on the ground. "Yes," he continued, drawing his tall figure up to its full height and crossing his arms on his breast, "my name is Drake. As to Mahoghany, I've no objection to it though it ain't complimentary. If, as you say, Mister Stalker, I'm to swing for this, of course I must swing.
"Mahoghany Drake would be inclined to dispute that p'int with 'ee," returned Bevan. "However, you know best, so we'll wait till you give us the signal to advance." Having directed his white friends to lie down, Unaco divested himself of all superfluous clothing, and glided swiftly but noiselessly towards the robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a scalping-knife in his girdle.
"Well, I don't mind if I do," replied the trapper, with a twinkle of his eyes. Mahoghany Drake was blessed with that rare gift, the power to invest with interest almost any subject, no matter how trivial or commonplace, on which he chose to speak.
"Bevan not there," he said briefly, when they had retired to a safe distance; "only Mahoghany Drake an' two boy." "Well, why didn't ye scalp them!" asked Stalker, savagely, for he was greatly disappointed to find that his enemy was not in the camp. "You said that all white men were your enemies." "No, not all," replied the savage. "Drake have the blood of white mans, but the heart of red mans.
I do believe it's Mahoghany Drake himself!" Tolly did not reply, for he had run eagerly forward to meet the trapper, having already recognised him. "His name is a strange one," remarked Fred Westly, gazing steadily at the man as he approached. "Drake is his right name," explained Bevan, "an' Mahoghany is a handle some fellers gave him 'cause he's so much tanned wi' the sun.
He wrote to little Tolly Trevor endeavouring to persuade him to come to England and be "made a man of", but Tolly politely declined, preferring to follow the fortunes of Mahoghany and be made a man of in the backwoods sense of the expression, in company with his fast friend the Leaping Buck.
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