Page:Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight.djvu/165

Rh "How Big Foot!" greeted the custom officer, to one Indian who had an extremely large left foot. "How!"

"How!" responded the Indian, with a grunt.

"Plenty much fine air-bird; eh?" and the agent Waved his hand toward the Falcon.

"Yep. Plenty much big."

"Big Foot never see bird like this; eh?"

"Oh sure. Big Foot see before many times. Huh!"

"What! Has he seen this before?" asked Tom.

"No. Wait a minute," cautioned Mr. Whitford. "I'm on the track of something. Big Foot see air-bird like this?" he questioned.

"Sure. Fly over Indians' land many times. Not same as him," and he nodded toward Tom's ship, "but plenty much like. Make heap noise. Come down once—break wheel mebby. Indians help fix. Indians get firewater. You got firewater in your air-bird?"

"No firewater, but maybe we've got some tobacco, if you tell us what we want to know, Big Foot. And so you've seen air-birds flying around here before?"

"Sure. Heap times. We all see," and he waved his hand to indicate the redmen gathered around him.

There came grunts of confirmation.