It was this reserve, and this respect for a recognized
principle, that enabled the bee-hunter to purchase a great deal of
popularity, by giving away liberally an article so much prized.
None, indeed, was reserved; Boden seeing the impossibility of
carrying it away. Happy would he have been, most happy, could he
have felt the assurance of being able to get Margery off, without
giving a second thought to any of his effects, whether present or
absent.
As has been intimated, the bee-hunter was fast rising in the favor
of the warriors; particularly of those who had a weakness on the
score of the stomach. This is the first great avenue to the favor of
man--the belly ruling all the other members, the brains included.
All this Peter noted, and was now glad to perceive; for, in addition
to the favor that Margery had found in his eyes, that wary chief had
certain very serious misgivings on the subject of the prudence of
attempting to deal harshly with a medicine man of Boden's calibre.
Touching the whiskey-spring he had been doubtful, from the first;
even Crowsfeather's account of the wonderful glass through which
that chief had looked, and seen men reduced to children and then
converted into giants, had failed to conquer his scepticism; but he
was not altogether proof against what he had that day beheld with
his own eyes.
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