You saw the Indians ?" "I did--they held me a prisoner, while they stole into your camp." "It would have been more like a white man and a Christian, to have let me known as much in better season," retorted Ishmael, casting another ominous sidelong glance at the trapper, as if still meditating evil.

"I am not much given to call every man, I fall in with, cousin, but colour should be something, when Christians meet in such a place as this.

But what is done, is done, and cannot be mended, by words.

Come out of your ambush, boys; here is no one but the old man: he has eaten of my bread, and should be our friend; though there is such good reason to suspect him of harbouring with our enemies." The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the explanations and denials to which he had just listened.

The summons of the unnurtured squatter brought an immediate accession to their party.
Four or five of his sons made their appearance from beneath as many covers, where they had been posted under the impression that the figures they had seen, on the swell of the prairie, were a part of the Sioux band.