“Tell ’bout dat,” returned Pigeonswing, with interest—­“tell how he got squaw.”

“Accordin’ to the Bible, God caused this man to fall into a deep sleep, when he took one of his ribs, and out of that he made a squaw for him.  Then he put them both to live together, in a most beautiful garden, in which all things excellent and pleasant was to be found—­ some such place as these openings, I reckon.”

“Any bee dere?” asked the Indian, quite innocently.  “Plenty honey, eh?”

“That will I answer for!  It could hardly be otherwise, when it was the intention to make the first man and first woman perfectly happy.  I dare say, Chippewa, if the truth was known, it would be found that bees was a sipping at every flower in that most delightful garden!”

“Why pale-face quit dat garden, eh?  Why come here to drive poor Injin ’way from game?  Tell me dat, Bourdon, if he can?  Why pale-face ever leave dat garden, when he so han’some, eh?”

“God turned him out of it, Chippewa—­yes, he was turned out of it, with shame on his face, for having disobeyed the commandments of his Creator.  Having left the garden, his children have scattered over the face of the earth.”

“So come here to drive off Injin!  Well, dat ’e way wid pale-face I Did ever hear of red man comin’ to drive off pale-face?”

“I have heard of your red warriors often coming to take our scalps, Chippewa.  More or less of this has been done every year, since our people have landed in America.  More than that they have not done, for we are too many to be driven very far in, by a few scattering tribes of Injins.”

“T’ink, den, more pale-face dan Injin, eh?” asked the Chippewa, with an interest so manifest that he actually stopped in his semi-trot, in order to put the question.  “More pale-face warrior dan red men?”

“More!  Aye, a thousand times more, Chippewa.  Where you could show one warrior, we could show a thousand!”

Now, this was not strictly true, perhaps, but it answered the purpose of deeply impressing the Chippewa with the uselessness of Peter’s plans, and sustained as it was by his early predilections, it served to keep him on the right side, in the crisis which was approaching.  The discourse continued, much in the same strain, until the men got in with their bear’s meat, having been preceded some time by the others, with the venison.

It is a little singular that neither the questions, nor the manner of Pigeonswing, awakened any distrust in the bee-hunter.  So far from this, the latter regarded all that had passed as perfectly natural, and as likely to arise in conversation, in the way of pure speculation, as in any other manner.  Pigeonswing intended to be guarded in what he said and did, for, as yet, he had not made up his mind which side he would really espouse, in the event of the great project coming to a head.  He had the desire, natural to a red man, to avenge the wrongs