They were
armed with sheath knives and revolvers, and the taller bore a rifle.
"Howdy, stranger?" exclaimed this one, and the other repeated the
simple American phrase of greeting. Responding in kind, I was bade to
seat myself on a fallen log, which I did. For some moments they
appeared to ignore me, excitedly discussing an adventure of the night
before, and addressing each other as Dead Shot and Hawk Eye. From
their quaint backwoods speech I gathered that Dead Shot, the taller
lad, had the day before been captured by a band of hostile redskins
who would have burned him at the stake but for the happy chance that
the chieftain's daughter had become enamoured of him and cut his
bonds.
They now planned to return to the encampment at nightfall to fetch
away the daughter, whose name was White Fawn, and cleaned and oiled
their weapons for the enterprise. Dead Shot was vindictive in the
extreme, swearing to engage the chieftain in mortal combat and to cut
his heart out, the same chieftain in former years having led his
savage band against the forest home of Dead Shot while he was yet too
young to defend it, and scalped both of his parents. "I was a mere
stripling then, but now the coward will feel my steel!" he coldly
declared.
It had become absurdly evident as I listened that the whole thing was
but spoofing of a silly sort that lads of this age will indulge in,
for I had seen the younger one take his seat at the luncheon table.
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