My
travels had given me some knowledge of the red tribes, and I spoke a
little of their language, but this man was of a type not often seen in
the Virginian lowlands. He was very tall, with a skin clear and
polished like bronze, and, unlike the ordinary savage, his breast was
unmarked, and his hair unadorned. He was naked to the waist, and below
wore long leather breeches, dyed red, and fringed with squirrels'
tails. In his wampum belt were stuck a brace of knives and a tomahawk.
It seemed he knew me, for as I approached he stood up to his full
height and put his hands on his forehead. "Brother," he said, and his
grave eyes looked steadily into mine.
Then I remembered. Some months before I had been riding back the road
from Green Springs, and in a dark, woody place had come across an
Indian sore beset by three of the white scum which infested the
river-side. What the quarrel was I know not, but I liked little the
villainous look of the three, and I liked much the clean, lithe figure
of their opponent. So I rode my horse among them, and laid on to them
with the butt of my whip. They had their knives out, but I managed to
disarm the one who attacked me, and my horse upset a second, while the
Indian, who had no weapon but a stave, cracked the head of the last.
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