's
absence?" said Slugs, holding out his horny hand to the Black Swan, who
gravely grasped and shook it.

"You redskins are a queer lot," said Slugs, with a grin, "yer as stiff
as a rifle ramrod to look at, but there's warm and good stuff in 'ee for
all that."

"But what about Wapaw?" inquired Mrs Gore, anxiously; "surely he's not
dead."

"If he's not dead he's not livin', for I saw Hawk himself, not four
weeks ago, shoot him and follow him up with his tomahawk, and then heard
their shout as they killed him. Where did he say he was goin' when he
left you?"

"He said he would go down to the settlements to see the missionaries,
an' that he thought o' lookin' in on the fur-traders that set up a fort
last year, fifty miles to the south'ard o' this."

"Ay, just so," said Slugs; "I was puzzled to know what he was doin'
thereaway, and that explains it. He's dead now, an' so are the
fur-traders he went to see. I'll tell ye all about it if you'll give me
baccy enough to fill my pipe. I ran out o't three days agone, an' ha'
bin smokin' tea-leaves an' bark, an' all sorts o' trash. Thank 'ee;
that's a scent more sweet nor roses."

As he said this the stout hunter cut up the piece of tobacco which Robin
at once handed to him, and rolled it with great zest between his palms.
When the pipe was filled and properly lighted, he leaned his back
against an unopened bale of goods that lay on the counter, and drawing
several whiffs, began his narrative.

"You must know that I made tracks for the noo fur-tradin' post when I
left you, Black Swan, about a month ago. I hadn't much of a object; it
was mainly cooriosity as took me there. I got there all right, an' was
sittin' in the hall chattin' wi' the head man--Macdonell they called
him--about the trade and the Injuns. Macdonell's two little child'n was
playin' about, a boy an' a girl, as lively as kittens, an' his wife--a
good-lookin' young 'ooman--was lookin' arter 'em, when the door opens,
and in stalks a long-legged Injun. It was Wapaw. Down he sat in front
o' the fireplace, an' after some palaver an' a pipe--for your Injuns'll
never tell all they've got to say at once--he tells Macdonell that there
was a dark plot hatchin' agin' him--that Hawk, a big rascal of his own
tribe, had worked upon a lot o' reptiles like hisself, an' they had made
up their minds to come an' massacre everybody at the Fort, and carry off
the goods.

"At first Macdonell didn't seem to believe the