riment on the preserving of some
"neat's tongues,"--as he politely called those of the buffalo,--and for
the sake of this delicacy utilized a floorless hut, otherwise
unoccupied, at the further end of the whole enclosure, as a smokehouse.
Often smoke was seen issuing thence, but with this understanding it
created no surprise. Sometimes the quartermaster-sergeant and two or
three other non-commissioned officers were seen pottering about it. Now
and again Captain Demere stood at the door and looked in. One day it
chanced that Hamish, who had secured two tongues, desiring to offer them
as a small tribute, came up close to him, in his deft, noiseless
deerskin buskins, before Captain Demere was aware. As he turned and saw
the boy, he instantly let the door in his hand fly back--not, however,
before the quick young fellow had had a dissolving view of the interior.
A fire smoked in the center of the chimneyless place, half smothered
with stones that constituted at once a hearth and protection from the
blaze, but one flickering shred of flame revealed not only the tongues
which Captain Stuart coveted, but rows of haunches and saddles of
venison and bear hams, and great sections of buffalo meat, as well as
pork and beef.

The boy understood in an instant, for the hunters from the fort provided
day by day for the wants of the garrison from the infinite reserves of
game in the vast wilderness without; these were preparations against a
state of siege, kept secret that the garrison might not be dispirited by
so gloomy a prospect, possibly groundless, and the settlement with its
women and children affrighted. Hamish, with a caution beyond his years,
affected to see naught, made his little offering, and took his way and
his speculations homeward. There he was admonished to say nothing of the
discovery; it was very proper, Sandy thought, for the garrison to be
prepared even against remote contingencies.

Hamish dutifully acquiesced, although he could but feel very wise to
know the secret workings of Captain Stuart's subtle mind and divine his
hidden plans, when that officer seemed to grow gravely interested in the
development and resources of the country, in which he had no share save
the minimum of space that the ramparts enclosed. He speculated adroitly
about mineral wealth in gossiping with the groups of settlers at the
gates after the drill. He told some strange stories that
Atta-Kulla-Kulla had recounted of the vestiges of previo