Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/200

186, and might well resent dictation. And Pikot’s bearing had warmed David’s old affection as, straight and dignified and proudly  contemptuous, he had dared the sachem’s  anger. In the wigwam David threw himself on his bed of skins and, with his hands beneath his head, gazed at the hot, sun-smitten  roof above him and tried to find an answer  to the riddle. After a while the old squaw pattered in and would have made a fire, but  David, far from hungry, drove her forth,  chattering, into the sunlight.

The heat put him to sleep at last, and when he awoke an hour or more later John was  squatting beside him, his pipe between his  lips. David lay a minute and watched the Indian’s face and wondered what thoughts  were passing behind that mask-like countenance. Presently, sighing for weariness of the heat, David drew the Indian’s regard,  and the latter turned his grave eyes toward  the boy.

“Much hot,” he grunted.

“Aye, John. Have Philip’s messengers departed yet?”

The Indian shook his head and pointed his pipe-stem toward the sky. “Sun um high. No go so. Bimeby.”