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“Now a jefe grande like this child don’t like to go around without plenty of hair to get hold of. Don’t want anyone to think he’s skittish about losing his scalp. Enough scalplock to braid by winter. Meantime…”
    He held it up proudly. At first Tal thought it was a prime fur, so thick and fine and chestnut brown it was. Then he saw the luxuriant curls. A wig, almost shoulder length. Hairy pulled it onto his head and tugged till it looked just right in the mirror. Hairy intoned,
    I am of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the West, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life!’
    Hairy modelled it for Tal, turning his big head this way and that. Tal thought it handsome, adding a touch of gallant to Hairy’s natural fierce.
    “And will ye dance with us, Ronald?” one of the boys called in an Irish lilt. They were ten steps away, lounging around a low cook fire.
    Another one, his elbow against a wagon, mimicked in Pennsylvania Dutch, “Aye, and a kisch for two bitsch, mine beauty.”
    Hairy sized him up for a moment, there off to the left of the others, then reached leisurely behind his belt and whipped his arm toward the mimicker.
    The knife whacked into the wagon snug against the man’s elbow, its handle quivering.
    “Ah, ye can keep the knife, lad,” rumbled Hairy. “It throws a mite low.” He smiled his ogre smile, huge and mean.
    “You sumbitch,” the man snarled.
    “Shut up, pantywaist.” The words came from the Irish lilter. Tal couldn’t figure it.
    “Vas?” growled Pennsylvania Dutch.
    Hairy was just grinning like a polecat.
    “You dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy, and your sis does too,” sang Irish. Except that his mouth didn’t move, and he looked bewildered. Pennsylvania Dutch moved toward him, Hairy’s knife held low.
    Hairy picked up the saddle and slipped off. Tal followed close behind.
    Tal could hear the other men interfering, stopping the fight. “That’s a trick of Shakespeare’s,” someone hollered. “He didn’t insult ye, Dutch.”
    Others were calling out words like “crazy” and “half-wit.”
    “How’d you do it, Hairy?”
    “A bit of the actor’s craft, lad.” He sang this sentence in an uncanny imitation of the Irish lilter—not just the accent, but voice itself. “Ve showed zem, didn’t ve?” This was Dutch, right down to the rasp. “Mimicry plus ventriloquism.” Tal noticed his mouth didn’t move at all. Incredible.
    Hairy took Tal’s arm and kept him walking, on the quick.
    “Wagh!” said Tal. That was the kind of crazy Tal liked.
    Next morning Hairy brought it up to Tal. He’d been chatting up the two squaws for about an hour when he suddenly cantered back to Tal, his chestnut locks bouncing and a big smile on his face.
    “The real statuesque one,” said Hairy, pointing. “Name is Iron Kettle.”
    Bound to be trouble, thought Tal. “The bony one?” The older, homelier squaw who was always talking so fast with tongue and hands at once. “She belongs to Louie.”
    “Naw, she don’t. I found out about her. She was sharing blankets with a coon back to Taos, been with him since last summer, and took a notion. Likely he lodgepoled her, or beat her when he was drunk, or some such.” Hairy’s British accent seemed to come and go more now.
    “Anyhow, she left him and rode this way with Louie on account of he said the brigade might go on to the Stinking Water. Her people will be there in the fall. Maybe she wants her buck back. Or just wants home cooking.”
    Tal regarded her. She looked old as river rock, and too worn for anyone to want, in his opinion.
    “So what’s the object?”
    “Hoss, this child ain’t whole-hog comfortable in this place.”
    “And?”
    “Her folks would think mighty well of the beavers what brought her home. Mighty well. Several horses well.”
    It dawned on Tal. “You mean escort her?” He pondered it. It sounded appealing,