He was astonished at Wonta's raillery; the more so when she presently
snapped her fingers, and the other maidens, laughing, did the same. Some
of the half-breeds snapped their fingers also in sympathy, and shrugged
their shoulders. Wonta came up to him softly, patted him on the head,
and said: "Like Macavoy there is nobody. He is a great brave. He is not
afraid of a coyote, he has killed prairie-hens in numbers as pebbles by
the lakes. He has a breast like a fat ox,"--here she touched the skin of
his broad chest,--"and he will die if you do not fight him."
Then she drew back, as though in humble dread, and glided away with the
other maidens, Macavoy staring after her, with a blustering kind of shame
in his face. The half-breeds laughed, and, one by one, they got up, and
walked away also. Macavoy looked round: there was no one near save
Pierre, whose eye rested on him lazily. Macavoy got to his feet,
muttering. This was the first time in his experience at Fort O'Angel
that he had been bluffed--and by a girl; one for whom he had a very soft
place in his big heart. Pierre came slowly over to him.
"I'd have it out with her," said he. "She called you a bully and a
brag."
"Out with her?" cried Macavoy. "How can ye have it out wid a woman?"
"Fight her," said Pierre pensively.
"Fight her? fight her? Holy smoke! How can you fight a woman?"
"Why, what--do you--fight?" asked Pierre innocently.
Macavoy grinned in a wild kind of fashion.
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