One morning, after Melville had returned home, Herbert was led, by the ardor of the chase, to wander farther than usual. He was aware of this, but did not fear being lost, having a compass and knowing his bearings. All at once, as he was making his way along a wooded path, he was startled by hearing voices. He hurried forward, and the scene upon which he intruded was dramatic enough.
With arms folded, a white man, a hunter, apparently, stood erect, and facing him, at a distance of seventy-five or eighty feet, was an Indian, with gun raised, and leveled at the former.
“Why don't you shoot, you red rascal!” said the white man. “You've got the drop on me, I allow, and I am in your power.”
The Indian laughed in his guttural way; but though he held the gun poised, he did not shoot. He was playing with his victim as a cat plays with a mouse before she kills it.
“Is white man afraid?” said the Indian, not tauntingly, but with real curiosity, for among Indians it is considered a great triumph if a warrior can inspire fear in his foe, and make him show the white feather.
“Afraid!” retorted the hunter. “Who should I be afraid of?”
“Don't flatter yourself, you pesky savage,” returned the white man, coolly, ejecting a flood of tobacco juice from his mouth, for though he was a brave man, he had some drawbacks. “You needn't think I am afraid of you.”
“Indian shoot!” suggested his enemy, watching the effect of this announcement.
“Well, shoot, then, and be done with it.”
“Of course I want to live. Never saw a healthy white man that didn't. If I was goin' to die at all, I wouldn't like to die by the hands of a red rascal like you.”
“Indian great warrior,” said the dusky denizen of the woods, straightening up, and speaking complacently.
“Indian may be great warrior, but he is a horse thief, all the same,” said the hunter, coolly.
“White man soon die, and Indian wear his scalp,” remarked the Indian, in a manner likely to disturb the composure of even the bravest listener.
The hunter's face changed. It was impossible to reflect upon such a fate without a pang. Death was nothing to that final brutality.
“Ha! White man afraid now!” said the Indian, triumphantly--quick to observe the change of expression in his victim.