Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/201

 the size of an egg between his eyes. Baker was in time with his warning:

"Th' critter don't mean no harm."

The Indian gestured for permission to examine the knife that had conquered him. It was a beautiful weapon, and the brave saved his pride by attributing his defeat to the medicine in it rather than to Lander's skill. He gazed at it longingly, then led up his pony and offered to trade. Lander might have been tempted as the animal was far superior to the average run of horse-flesh owned by mountain men, but Baker warned:

"Don't swap yer medicine. Ye're big guns with 'em now. I'll tell 'em th' medicine won't work for no one but yerself. Ye're lucky if yer medicine ain't mad at ye for even thinkin' o' doin' sech a thing." So Lander refused, and Baker softened it down in interpreting it, then drew Black Arrow to one side and talked with him some minutes. Coming back to Lander he explained:

"Chief says them Blackfeet, 'bout a hundred 'n' fifty of 'em, are jest back from visitin' their friends, th' 'Rapahos, an' on their way to a big band now campin' in Jackson's Hole near th' Three Tetons. Says th' big band held up a H. B.