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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

"
"Dat good medicine-man, eh? T'ink he know a great deal, eh?"
"That is more than I can tell you, Pigeonswing; for though I've been
a medicine-man myself, so lately, it is in a different line
altogether from that of Parson Amen's."
As the bee-hunter uttered this answer, he was putting the last of
his honey-kegs into the cache, and as he rose from completing the
operation, he laughed heartily, like one who saw images in the
occurrences of the past night, that tended to divert himself, if
they had not the same effect on the other spectators.
"If you medicine-man, can tell who Peter be? Winnebagoe, Sioux, Fox,
Ojebway, Six Nations all say don't know him. Medicine-man ought to
know--who he be, eh?"
"I am not enough of a medicine-man to answer your question,
Pigeonswing. Set me at finding a whiskey-spring, or any little job
of that sort, and I'll turn my back to no other whiskey-spring
finder on the whole frontier; but, as for Peter, he goes beyond my
calculations, quite. Why is he called Scalping Peter in the
garrisons, if he be so good an Injin, Chippewa?"
"You ask question--you answer. Don't know, 'less he take a good many
scalps.


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