On the other hand, while the
questions of the Indian were far more dignified and delicate, they
were equally ingenious. He commented on the state of the trade in
peltries, spoke of the good or ill success of many white hunters, whom
he had either encountered, or heard named, and even alluded to the
steady march, which the nation of his great father, as he cautiously
termed the government of the States, was making towards the hunting-
grounds of his tribe. It was apparent, however, by the singular
mixture of interest, contempt, and indignation, that were occasionally
gleaming through the reserved manner of this warrior, that he knew the
strange people, who were thus trespassing on his native rights, much
more by report than by any actual intercourse. This personal ignorance
of the whites was as much betrayed by the manner in which he regarded
the females, as by the brief, but energetic, expressions which
occasionally escaped him.
While speaking to the trapper he suffered his wandering glances to
stray towards the intellectual and nearly infantile beauty of Inez, as
one might be supposed to gaze upon the loveliness of an ethereal
being.
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