But put you the questions in straight-going Indian, and when you speak of yourself, make such a sign as a white man will understand, in order that I may know there is no foul play." The trapper laughed in his silent fashion, and muttered a few words to himself before he addressed the chief-- "Let the Dahcotah open his ears very wide," he said 'that big words may have room to enter.

His friend the Big-knife comes with an empty hand, and he says that the Teton must fill it." "Wagh! Mahtoree is a rich chief.

He is master of the prairies." "He must give the dark-hair." The brow of the chief contracted in an ominous frown, that threatened instant destruction to the audacious squatter; but as suddenly recollecting his policy, he craftily replied-- "A girl is too light for the hand of such a brave.

I will fill it with buffaloes." "He says he has need of the light-hair, too; who has his blood in her veins." "She shall be the wife of Mahtoree; then the Long-knife will be the father of a chief." "And me," continued the trapper, making one of those expressive signs, by which the natives communicate, with nearly the same facility as with their tongues, and turning to the squatter at the same time, in order that the latter might see he dealt fairly by him; "he asks for a miserable and worn-out trapper." The Dahcotah threw his arm over the shoulder of the old man, with an air of great affection, before he replied to this third and last demand.
"My friend is old," he said, "and cannot travel far.

He will stay with the Tetons, that they may learn wisdom from his words.