He had put an imprudent question.

He turned away carelessly, placed more wood on the fire, and poked the embers.

Tyope looked up at the sky, and thus the vivid, scornful glance the other threw on his figure escaped him.
So far the conversation had been carried on in the Queres language; now the stranger suddenly spoke in another dialect and in a more imperious tone.
"Art thou afraid of the Dinne ?" "Why should I be afraid of them ?" responded Tyope in his native tongue.
"Speak the tongue of the Dinne," the other sternly commanded, and a flash burst from beneath his eyebrows, almost as savage as that of a wolf.

"Thou hast courted the people of my tribe.

They have not sought after thee.