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For Watusk they had a kind of good-humored contempt for him a cold and deadly scorn. Evidently their minds were made up in advance. The inspector twirled his mustache and regarded him with a hard, speculative eye. Ambrose's heart failed him terribly. These were men that he admired. "What's the matter?" he cried. "Do you believe this liar?
Watusk and his crew, pursuing them in two dugouts, had seen the smoke of their fire from up the river. They had landed above the point and, making a short detour inland, had fallen on Ambrose and Nesis from behind. Nesis had been carried back in one dugout, Ambrose in the other.
He pished and swaggered, and made some remark to his men with the obsequious smile with which child or man asks for the support of his mates in his wrong-doing. The men did not smile back; they merely watched soberly to see what Watusk was going to do about it. The hail was repeated. "Ho, Watusk! Inspector Egerton orders you to come and talk to him!"
Such little facts are highly significant. "Watusk's evidence makes the next link. I do not attempt to justify this unfortunate man, gentlemen. At least he is contrite, and throws himself on the mercy of the court. Watusk says when they came back across the river the Indians were sorry for what they had done and terrified of punishment. "Watusk urged them to return what they had stolen.
Ambrose, expecting visitors, watched at his window until late. None came. In the morning he made the man who brought his breakfast understand by signs that he wished to speak with Watusk. The chief did not, however, vouchsafe him a call. To-day it transpired that the Indians were only making a temporary halt below.
Ambrose's heart swelled with the pride of race. "Splendid fellows!" he cried to himself. "It was exactly the right thing to do!" Presently a hail was raised in the valley below; a deep English voice whose tones gladdened Ambrose's ears. "Ho, Watusk!" Every eye turned toward the leader. Watusk had the air of a wilful child called by his parent.
The cook-stove occupied the center of the room, and around it a narrow space had been left for the dancers. The air was suffocating to white lungs, what with human emanations combined with the thick fumes of kinnikinic. Watusk, still sporting the frock coat and the finger-rings, had improved his costume by the addition of a battered silk hat with a chaplet of red paper roses around the brim.
Across the river, as the Indians started to unload, Watusk came down to the beach, followed by several of his councilors. It was impossible to tell from his inscrutable, self-important air what he thought of all this. His flabby, yellow face changed neither at the sight of all the wealth they brought nor at the two dead men.
Here was a change from the fire-eater of half an hour before. "Ho!" cried Inspector Egerton. "The conqueror of the English!" Watusk drew closer and began to whine insinuatingly. "I sorry I mak' that talk, me. I can' help it at all. Ambrose Doane tell me that. He put his medicine on me. I sick."
They convoyed seven prisoners, and five additional members of the Kakisa tribe, whom Watusk had indicated would be material witnesses. Ambrose watched Watusk ingratiating himself with bitterness at his heart. The Indian ex-leader's air of penitent eagerness to atone for past misdeeds was admirable. They rode hard, and crossed the river before making their first camp.
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