“This is news to me, Peter, and I am surprised to hear it.  I did think that even the great Tecumthe was scarcely as big a chief as you are yourself.”

“Yes, pretty big chief; dat true.  But, among Injin, ebbery man can speak, and nebber know which way council go.  Sometime he go one way; sometime he go tudder.  You hear Bough of Oak speak, eh?  Tell me dat?”

“You will remember that I heard none of your speakers on Prairie Round, Peter.  I do not remember any such orator as this Bough of Oak.”

“He great rascal,” said Peter, who had picked up some of the garrison expressions among those from whom he acquired the knowledge of English he possessed, such as it was.  “Listen, Bourdon.  Nebber bess stand too much in Peter’s way.”

The bee-hunter laughed freely at this remark; for his own success the previous day, and the impression he had evidently made on that occasion, emboldened him to take greater liberties with the mysterious chief than had been his wont.

“I should think that, Peter,” cried the young man, gayly—­“I should think all that.  For one, I should choose to get out of it.  The path you travel is your own, and all wise men will leave you to journey along it in your own fashion.”

“Yes; dat bess way,” answered the great chief, with admirable simplicity.  “Don’t like, when he says yes, to hear anudder chief say no.  Dat an’t good way to do business.”

These were expressions caught from the trading whites, and were often used by those who got their English from them.  “I tell you one t’ing, Bourdon—­dat Bough of Oak very foolish Injin if he put foot on my path.”

“This is plain enough, Peter,” rejoined le Bourdon, who was unconcernedly repairing some of the tools of his ordinary craft.  “By the way, I am greatly in your debt, I learn, for one thing.  They tell me I’ve got my squaw in my wigwam a good deal sooner, by your advice, than I might have otherwise done.  Margery is now my wife, I suppose you know; and I thank you heartily, for helping me to get married so much sooner than I expected to be.”

Here Peter grasped Bourdon by the hand, and poured out his whole soul, secret hopes, fears, and wishes.  On this occasion he spoke in the Indian dialect—­one of those that he knew the bee-hunter understood.  And we translate what he said freely into English, preserving as much of the original idiom as the change of language will permit.

“Listen, hunter of the bee, the great medicine of the pale-faces, and hear what a chief that knows the red men is about to tell you.  Let my words go into your ears; let them stay in your mind.  They are words that will do you good.  It is not wise to let such words come out again by the hole through which they have just entered.