weedy, showing that their stock was
running out.

Stonor led the way across the flat and up a grassy rise to the little
shack that has been mentioned. It had been built for the Company clerk
who had formerly traded with the Kakisas, and Stonor designed it to
accommodate Clare for the night. They dismounted at the door. The
Indians followed them to within a distance of ten paces, where they
squatted on their heels or stood still, staring immovably. Stonor
resented their curiosity. Good manners are much the same the world over,
and a self-respecting people would not have acted so, he told himself.
None offered to stir hand or foot to assist them to unpack.

Stonor somewhat haughtily desired the head man to show himself. When one
stepped forward, he received him sitting in magisterial state on a box
at the door. Personally the most modest of men, he felt for the moment
that Authority had to be upheld in him. So the Indian was required to
stand.

His name was Ahchoogah (as near as a white man could get it) and he was
about forty years old. Though small and slight like all the Kakisas, he
had a comely face that somehow suggested race. He was better dressed
than the majority, in expensive "moleskin" trousers from the store, a
clean blue gingham shirt, a gaudy red sash, and an antique
gold-embroidered waistcoat that had originated Heaven knows where. On
his feet were fine white moccasins lavishly embroidered in coloured
silks.

"How," he said, the one universal English word. He added a more
elaborate greeting in his own tongue.

Mary translated. "Ahchoogah say he glad to see the red-coat, like he
glad to see the river run again after the winter. Where the red-coats
come there is peace and good feeling among all. No man does bad to
another man. Ahchoogah hope the red-coat come often to Swan River."

Stonor watched the man's face while he was speaking, and apprehended
hostility behind the smooth words. He was at a loss to account for it,
for the police are accustomed to being well received. "There's been some
bad influence at work here," he thought.

He said grimly to Mary: "Tell him that I hear his good words, but I do
not see from the faces of his people that we are welcome here."

This was repeated to Ahchoogah, who turned and objurgated his people
with every appearance of anger.

"What's he saying to them?" Stonor quietly asked Mary.

"Call bad names," said Mary. "Swear Kakisa swears. Tell them go back to
the t