When this equivocal species of amity was established
between the warrior of the prairies and the experienced old trapper,
the latter proceeded to give his directions to Paul, concerning the
arrangements of the contemplated halt. While Inez and Ellen were
dismounting, and Middleton and the bee-hunter were attending to their
comforts, the discourse was continued, sometimes in the language of
the natives, but often, as Paul and the Doctor mingled their opinions
with the two principal speakers, in the English tongue. There was a
keen and subtle trial of skill between the Pawnee and the trapper, in
which each endeavoured to discover the objects of the other, without
betraying his own interest in the investigation. As might be expected,
when the struggle was between adversaries so equal, the result of the
encounter answered the expectations of neither. The latter had put all
the interrogatories his ingenuity and practice could suggest,
concerning the state of the tribe of the Loups, their crops, their
store of provisions for the ensuing winter, and their relations with
their different warlike neighbours without extorting any answer,
which, in the slightest degree, elucidated the cause of his finding a
solitary warrior so far from his people.
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