“What we ought to have,” I told Verrieul, “is rum to drink the health of the one who has brought us so far in such a short time.” I indicated Sponge-belly. Rum-drinking, in Indian circles, requires a special coat of paint, so all of us went ashore, took our paint and mirrors from our blankets and squatted on the shingle, Indian fashion. The women gathered to watch us, and, on being asked, brought us kettles from which we scraped the soot that formed the basis of all our decoration. A few made scoffing remarks about our unbearable vanity—“Bejasus,” I heard one say, “ain’t they beauties! They’d sour vinegar, even!”—but for the most part they eyed us with a sort of fascinated repulsion, as they might have stared at snakes.

While Sponge-belly and the rest of our companions squatted by the canoe, still busy with their colors, Joseph Phipps and Doc and I went to the nearest marquee and stood before it. Our appearance made an impression upon the sutler.

“Well, by God,” he said, staring at my clay-filled crest and Doc’s buffalo-horn bonnet, “where’d you come from! Why ain’t you up in front? Ain’t you heard there’s a war?”

Joseph Phipps answered. “Me St. Francis. These Sacs. We go fight.”

“Sacs, hey!” the sutler said. “Well, you Sacs’ll find you’ve come a hell of a ways, all for nothing, if you don’t get on up to Ticonderoga. This war’s liable to be over tomorrow: maybe even tonight!”

“Me want rum,” Joseph said.

“I don’t doubt it,” the sutler said. “We ain’t allowed to sell rum unless we get money for it. Got any money?”

“Hi-yi!” Doc Means said. “Me big shaman! Me big medicine man!” He took a bracelet from his arm and threw it on the counter. “Heap big medicine, that bracelet! You give rum!”

The sutler picked up the bracelet, tapped it with a knife-blade, dug at the back with the knife-point: then threw it down contemptuously. “One bottle,” he said.

Doc’s howl was anguished. “That bracelet heap big medicine! Squaw wear that bracelet, every man love her! Hi-yi! That bracelet worth big keg rum! Big keg! Big, big keg!”

The sutler guffawed. “Keg! That bracelet ain’t worth a thimbleful of this rum I got here.”

Doc grunted. “You got damn bad rum, like all rum! Damn big ugly man! Damn bad rum! Somebody buy one keg rum, he only get poisoned. Squaw buy my bracelet, everybody love her all rest of her life! I sell bracelet to squaw!”

“Say!” the sutler complained. “You’re a pretty wise Injun, you are, like hell.”

Doc turned to eye the interested women who had crowded up to stare at Doc and his bracelet.

“Look here,” the sutler said hastily, “I’ll give you three bottles. How’s that?”

Doc just stood there, looking off into space.