'Not they!' replied Dick; 'a Crow won't face a Blackfoot nowadays, and, unless they're stealing horses or killing cattle, they aren't doing any harm, you bet.' 'How!' It was a sound between a human voice and a dog's bark, sharp, hoarse, and guttural, and it appeared to proceed from the ground under Snap's seat. Snap was round as if a wasp had stung him. There had been no sound behind the camp-fire; no dry twig had cracked, no leaf rustled; and yet there was this sudden 'How!' and behind Snap stood, stiff and silent, a tall, grim-looking Redskin. A sort of pointed hat of rush was on his head, through the band of which an eagle's plume had been stuck; round his shoulders was a bright-coloured blanket, and wide trousers of deer-skin, with long fringes of the same down the seams, reached to his ankles. 'Not a beauty,' Snap thought, and he moved a little uneasily away from the stranger, who stood quietly staring at the group. The Indian was certainly not a beauty, even for an Indian. His hair was sleek and black--'snaky' Towzer called it. His eyes were small and set close together in a big bull-like head, and he was hare-lipped. His face, too, was full of lines and wrinkles. He was as old as the hills apparently, but old as the oaks grow old--strong and rugged, and nowhere near being worn out. 'How!' said Dick, and he rose and gave the chief his hand, and offered him a seat on his blanket, which he took. 'Do you speak English?' asked Snap as the Indian sat beside him, but the only answer he got was a stony stare. 'I guess he does, for all that,' whispered Texan; 'these beggars never let on how much they know. Say, Dick, you talk their lingo; ask him where he comes from.' So adjured, old Dick Wharton supplied his guest with fish, bread, and tea, all of which he took without a word, and then Dick began to question him. The Indians had broken up their fishing-camp, the Redskin said; their medicine-man had advised them to. Oh, yes, it was a good season, and there were lots of fish there yet, but the medicine-man had seen a bird, and the tribe could not stay any longer. 'Seen a bird!' cried old Wharton; 'well, I reckon he sees a good many birds in a day; but what kind of a bird was this to frighten the whole tribe from fishing and gambling?' 'The tribe was not frightened, O white-skin,' replied the Indian with dignity; 'but they knew that the bird which Teeveevex saw was the bird of doom, which preys on the tribes of men, and the Crows have hidden until the danger is passed.' 'But what sort of a bird is the bird of doom?' persisted Wharton. 'Only Teeveevex has seen it,' replied the chief, 'but its white wings are as the clouds which contain the rain-storms, and it rushes through the sky like a star falling from its throne.'