Page:The Oregon Trail by Parkman.djvu/385

Rh and sunshine and a downright tornado of wrath; he said nothing to Tête Rouge, but his wrongs rankled in his breast. Tête Rouge had taken his place at dinner; it was his happiest moment; he sat enveloped in the old buffalo-coat, sleeves turned up in preparation for the work, and his short legs crossed on the grass before him; he had a cup of coffee by his side and his knife ready in his hand and while he looked upon the fat hump ribs, his eyes dilated with anticipation. Deslauriers sat just opposite to him, and the rest of us by this time had taken our seats.

"How is this, Deslauriers? You haven't given us bread enough."

At this Deslauriers's placid face flew instantly into a paroxysm of contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, gesticulated, and hurled forth a volley of incoherent words in broken English at the astonished Tête Rouge. It was just possible to make out that he was accusing him of having stolen and eaten four large cakes which had been laid by for dinner. Tête Rouge, confounded at this sudden attack, stared at Deslauriers for a moment in dumb amazement, with mouth and eyes wide open. At last he found speech, and protested that the accusation was false; and that he could not conceive how he had offended Mr. Deslauriers, or provoked him to use such ungentlemanly expressions. The tempest of words raged with such fury that nothing else could be heard. But Tête Rouge, from his greater command of English, had a manifest advantage over Deslauriers, who after sputtering and grimacing for a while, found his words quite inadequate to the expression of his wrath. He jumped up and vanished, jerking out between his teeth one furious sacré enfant de garce! a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by being usually applied together with a cut of the whip to refractory mules and horses.