Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds

possession of the room. It was sweetish and greasy. If water had ever touched him, she thought, it had only been when wading the creek; and his moccasins showed how the dirt stuck to them afterwards.
    He wore leggings, he had a battered skirt arrangement of deerskin with a few beads on the edge, and a weathered hunting shirt, which, if it had ever had a color, was now so greasy that it was impossible to tell. On his head was the felt hat, with a hole in the pointed crown through which the stem of a basswood leaf was sticking. He also carried a brown musket, a knife, and a hatchet.
    “Fine,” he said again and sat down on the bench Lana had just risen from.
    “Is there any milk left?” Gil asked her. “We haven’t any rum, but Blue Back likes milk fine. Don’t you?”
    “Fine,” said the Indian, grinning and slapping his hand on his stomach. “Yes, fine.”
    Lana threw Gil a glance, she didn’t care what he thought of it. The Indian’s feet were making muddy pools on her clean floor. And her stomach felt queasy. Then without a word she went out to the spring for their jug of milk. She brought it in and set it on the table.
    “Get two cups,” said Gil. “And pour him some.”
    Lana said, “You can pour it yourself.”
    After one look at her scarlet face, Gil silently did so. He said nothing to her as she went up the ladder to the loft. Blue Back, apparently, took no notice, but fixed his brown eyes on the peacock’s feather. He obviously admired it, but said nothing. He accepted the cup of milk.
    When he had finished drinking it, Gil asked, “What are you doing this way, Blue Back?”
    It always amused him that the stout stodgy Indian had been named for the noisy blue jay.
    “Looking for deer.” In his broken English, interspersed with innumerable “fines,” the Indian explained that he had been hunting over the Hazenclever hill. He had shot a doe which he had left in a tree down by the river to take home. He had a haunch there for Gil if Gil wanted it. But it had taken a long time.
    He had found the tracks of two Seneca Indians. He thought they must have come from Cosby’s Manor. They had had a small fire and lain around on top of the hill all day. Then they had been joined by a man with shoes on. They had taken the trail for Oswego, he thought. He was going to take the doe home and then he was going up north and west for a scout. He wanted to tell Gil that if he saw two fires on the hill at night, he had better look out. Gil could tell Captain Demooth. Blue Back, in explanation, went on to say that he had heard that the Senecas had sent word to the Oneidas that a party might come down to the head of the valley soon and the Oneidas were to mind their business.
    “Thanks for letting me know,” Gil said.
    Blue Back said it was all right. “Like you. Fine friends. Me. you. Fine.” He finished his second cup and got up.
    “I’ll come for that deer meat,” said Gil.
    He accompanied the Indian down to the river where the doehad been hung in a willow crotch. The Indian butchered off a hind leg and then turned aside and after some search selected a willow switch. This he peeled and handed to Gil.
    “Got fine woman. You young man. You use this on her. Indian don’t need it. English man do. I know. I old man. You lick her. She fine woman.”
    He beamed at this indication of his own sophistication in the matter of white man’s culture, shouldered the carcass of the doe and took to the ford.
    Feeling very foolish, Gil wiggled the switch and watched him cross the river. It was annoying that Lana had had the poor taste to get up a mad before a guest, even if he was an Indian. Perhaps the greasy old fellow was right, and she needed discipline to take her mind off herself. It made Gil unhappy that he should have noticed.
7

Talk at Night
    Gil walked round the outside of his cabin, taking a piece of flannel from the woodshed on his way. He wrapped the haunch of venison in this and hung it from a branch over the