“I didn't know, Pigeonswing, but you had started for the openings, before us,” observed le Bourdon. “That tribeless old Injin made something of a fuss about your being out of the way; I dare say he wanted you to help back the furniture down to the canoes.” “Got squaw--what he want--better to do dat?” “So you would put that pretty piece of work on such persons as Margery and Dolly!” “Why not, no? Bot' squaw-bot know how. Dere business to work for warrior.” “Did you keep out of the way, then, lest old Peter should get you at a job that is onsuitable to your manhood?” “Keep out of way of Pottawattamie,” returned the Chippewa; “no want to lose scalp-radder take his'n.” “But Peter says the Pottawattamies are all gone, and that we have no longer any reason to fear them; and this medicine-priest tells us, that what Peter says we can depend on for truth.” “Dat good medicine-man, eh? T'ink he know a great deal, eh?” “That is more than I can tell you, Pigeonswing; for though I've been a medicine-man myself, so lately, it is in a different line altogether from that of Parson Amen's.” As the bee-hunter uttered this answer, he was putting the last of his honey-kegs into the cache, and as he rose from completing the operation, he laughed heartily, like one who saw images in the occurrences of the past night, that tended to divert himself, if they had not the same effect on the other spectators. “If you medicine-man, can tell who Peter be? Winnebagoe, Sioux, Fox, Ojebway, Six Nations all say don't know him. Medicine-man ought to know--who he be, eh?” “I am not enough of a medicine-man to answer your question, Pigeonswing. Set me at finding a whiskey-spring, or any little job of that sort, and I'll turn my back to no other whiskey-spring finder on the whole frontier; but, as for Peter, he goes beyond my calculations, quite. Why is he called Scalping Peter in the garrisons, if he be so good an Injin, Chippewa?” “You ask question--you answer. Don't know, 'less he take a good many scalps. Hear he do take all he can find--den hear he don't.” “But you take all you can find, Pigeonswing; and that which is good in you, cannot be so bad in Peter.” “Don't take scalp from friend. When you hear Pigeonswing scalp FRIEND, eh?” “I never did hear it; and hope I never shall. But when did you hear that Peter is so wicked?” “S'pose he don't, 'cause he got no friend among pale-face. Bes' take care of dat man?” “I'm of your way of thinking, myself, Chippewa; though the corporal and the priest think him all in all. When I asked Parson Amen how he came to be the associate of one who went by a scalping name, even he told me it was all name; that Peter hadn't touched a hair of a human head, in the way of scalping, since his youth, and that most of his notions and ways were quite Jewish, The parson has almost as much faith in Peter, as he has in his religion; I'm not quite sure he has not even more.”