Promptly she made as though to escape, but stopped at a word from Haukemah.  It was May-may-gwan, the Ojibway girl.

Obediently she paused.  Her eyes were dancing with the excitement of the adventure, an almost roguish smile curved her mouth and dimpled her cheek, her lower lip was tightly clasped between her teeth as she stood contemplating her heavily beaded little moccasin, awaiting the explanation of this, to her, extraordinary performance.

“What is your name, little sister?” asked Dick in Cree.

She dropped her head lower, but glanced from the corner of her eye at the questioner.

“Answer!” commanded Haukemah.

“May-may-gwan,” she replied in a low voice.

“Oh, yes,” said Dick, in English.  “You’re an Ojibway,” he went on in Cree.

“Yes.”

“That explains why you’re such a tearing little beauty,” muttered the young man, again in English.

“The old-men,” he resumed, in Cree, “have given me this robe.  Because I hold it very dear I wish to give it to that people whom I hold dearest.  That people is the Crees of Rupert’s House.  And because you are the fairest, I give you this robe so that there may be peace between your people and me.”

Ill-expressed as this little speech was, from the flowery standpoint of Indian etiquette, nevertheless its subtlety gained applause.  The Indians grunted deep ejaculations of pleasure.  “Good boy!” muttered Sam Bolton, pleased.

Dick lifted the robe and touched it to the girl’s hand.  She gasped in surprise, then slowly raised her eyes to his.

“Damn if you ain’t pretty enough to kiss!” cried Dick.

[Illustration:  “Pretty enough to kiss!” cried Dick]

He stepped across the robe, which had fallen between them, circled the girl’s upturned face with the flat of his hands, and kissed her full on the lips.

The kiss of ceremony is not unknown to the northern Indians, and even the kiss of affection sometimes to be observed among the more demonstrative, but such a caress as Dick bestowed on May-may-gwan filled them with astonishment.  The girl herself, though she cried out, and ran to hide among those of her own sex, was not displeased; she rather liked it, and could not mis-read the admiration that had prompted it.  Nor did the other Indians really object.  It was a strange thing to do, but perhaps it was a white man’s custom.  The affair might have blown away like a puff of gunpowder.

But at the moment of Dick’s salute, Sam Bolton cried out sharply behind him.  The young woodsman instantly whirled to confront the Chippewa.

“He reached for his knife,” explained Sam.

The ejaculation had also called the attention of every member of the band to the tableau.  There could be absolutely no doubt as to its meaning,—­the evident anger of the red, his attitude, his hand on the haft of his knife.  The Chippewa was fairly caught.