Old Hagar spat viciously at them both, and shrilled vituperative sentences--in her own tongue fortunately; else the things she said must have brought swift retribution. And as if she did not care for consequences and wanted to make her words carry a definite sting, she stopped, grinned maliciously, and spoke the choppy dialect of her tribe.
"Yo' tellum me shont-isham. Mebbyso yo' tellum yo' no ketchum Squaw-talk-far-off in sagebrush, all time Saunders go dead! Me ketchum hair--Squaw-talk-far-off hair. You like for see, you thinkum me tell lies?"
From under her blanket she thrust forth a greasy brown hand, and shook triumphantly before them a tangled wisp of woman's hair--the hair of Miss Georgie, without a doubt. There was no gainsaying that color and texture. She looked full at Evadna.
"Yo' like see, me show whereum walk," she said grimly. "Good Injun boot make track, Squaw-talk-far-off little shoe make track. Me show, yo' thinkum mebbyso me tell lie. Stoppum in sagebrush, ketchum hair. Me ketchum knife--Good Injun knife, mebbyso." Revenge mastered cupidity, and she produced that also, and held it up where they could all see.
Evadna looked and winced.
"I don't believe a word you say," she declared stubbornly. "You STOLE that knife. I suppose you also stole the hair. You can't MAKE me believe a thing like that!"
"Squaw-talk-far-off run, run heap fas', get home quick. Me seeum, Viney seeum, Lucy seeum." Hagar pointed to each as she named her, and waited until they give a confirmatory nod. The two squaws gazed steadily at the ground, and she grunted and ignored them afterward, content that they bore witness to her truth in that one particular.
"Squaw-talk-far-off sabe Good Injun killum Man-that-coughs, mebbyso," she hazarded, watching Good Indian's face cunningly to see if the guess struck close to the truth.
"If you've said all you want to say, you better go," Good Indian told her after a moment of silence while they glared at each other. "I won't touch you--because you're such a devil I couldn't stop short of killing you, once I laid my hands on you."
He stopped, held his lips tightly shut upon the curses he would not speak, and Evadna felt his biceps tauten under her fingers as if he were gathering himself for a lunge at the old squaw. She looked up beseechingly into his face, and saw that it was sharp and stern, as it had been that morning when the men had first been discovered in the orchard. He raised his free arm, and pointed imperiously to the trail.
"Pikeway!" he commanded.
Viney and Lucy shrank from the tone of him, and, hiding their faces in a fold of blanket, slunk silently away like dogs that have been whipped and told to go. Even Hagar drew back a pace, hardy as was her untamed spirit. She looked at Evadna clinging to his arm, her eyes wide and startlingly blue and horrified at all she had heard. She laughed then--did Hagar--and waddled after the others, her whole body seeming to radiate contentment with the evil she had wrought.