“And can nobody here speak Kakisa?” Ambrose asked.

“Nobody but Gordon Strange.  It is hard talk on the tongue.”

“What else about him?”

“Wa!  I have told you,” said Simon.  “You will know him when you see!  All tam show off lak a cock-grouse in mating-time.  He is not Kakisa.  He is a Cree who went with them long tam ago.  Some say his father was a black man.”

“So!” said Ambrose.  “And they stand for that?”

Simon shrugged.  “The Kakisas a funny people.  Not mix with the whites, not mix with other Indians lak Crees.  They keep old ways.  They not talk about their ways to other men.  So nobody knows what they do at home.”  Simon lowered his voice.  “Some say cannibals.”

“Pooh!” said Ambrose, “that yarn is told about every strange tribe!”

“Maybe,” said Simon, cautiously.  “I do not know myself.”

The Indian boy returning, signified that Joey Providence Watusk awaited them.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE STAFF OF LIFE.

Lifting the blind over the entrance, Ambrose dived inside the teepee, Simon Grampierre at his heels.  In the center a small fire burned on the ground, and behind it sat five dark-skinned figures in a semicircle.

Not one of the five faces changed a muscle at their entrance.  The principal man with a grave inclination of the head, waved them a blanket which had been placed for them opposite him.

It was like an old-time Indian council, but the picturesqueness was a good deal spoiled by the gingham shirts they wore, and the ill-fitting coats and trousers from the store.

Moreover, the red men’s pipes, instead of the graceful calumets were English briars with showy silver bands.  The bowl of Watusk’s pipe, of which he appeared to be inordinately proud, was roughly carved into the likeness of a death’s head.

Watusk was an extraordinary figure.  Ambrose was reminded of a quack doctor in poor circumstances.  He was middle-aged and flabby, and had long, straggling gray hair, bound round with a cotton fillet, none too clean.

He wore a frock coat all buttoned up before, each button constricting his fat, with a bulge between.  His trousers were made from a blanket once white, with a wide black band around the calf of each leg, and he wore fine doeskin moccasins, richly embroidered with silk.

His dirty fingers displayed a quantity of brass rings from the store, set with gems of colored glass.  His heavy, loose-featured face was unremarkable, except for the extraordinarily bright, quick, shallow eyes, suggesting at different moments the eyes of a child, an animal, and a madman.

His skin showed a tinge of yellow as distinguished from the pure copper of his companions, and Ambrose was reminded of the black man.

Watusk grandiloquently introduced his four companions.  “My councilors,” he said:  “Toma, minister of state; Lookoovar, minister of war; Mahtsonza, minister of interior; Tatateecha, minister of medicine.”