scalps in our wigwams, for they have struck a chief, and we will keep all their goods for our squaws—wah!”
This allusion to keeping all the goods had more effect on the minds of the vacillating savages than the chief’s eloquence. But a new turn was given to their thoughts by Joe Blunt remarking in a quiet, almost contemptuous tone,—“Mahtawa is not the great chief.”
“True, true,” they cried, and immediately hurried to the tent of San-it-sa-rish.
Once again this chief stood between the hunters and the savages, who wanted but a signal to fall on them. There was a long palaver, which ended in Henri being set at liberty and the rifle being restored.
That evening, as the three friends sat beside their fire eating their supper of boiled maize and buffalo meat, they laughed and talked as carelessly as ever; but the gaiety was assumed, for they were planning their escape from a tribe which would not long refrain from carrying out their wishes, and robbing, perhaps murdering them.
“Ye see,” said Joe with a perplexed air, while he drew a piece of live charcoal from the fire with his fingers and lighted his pipe—“ye see, there’s more difficulties in the way o’ getting off than ye think—”
“Oh, nivare mind de difficulties,” interrupted Henri, whose wrath at the treatment he had received had not yet cooled down. “Ve must jump on de best horses ve can git hold, shake our fists at de red reptiles and go away fast as ve can. De best hoss must vin de race.”
Joe shook his head. “A hundred arrows would be in our backs before we got twenty yards from the camp. Besides, we can’t tell which are the best horses. Our own are the best in my ’pinion, but how are we to git ’em?”
“I know who has charge o’ them,” said Dick. “I saw them grazing near the tent o’ that poor squaw whose baby was saved by Crusoe. Either her husband looks after them or some neighbours.”
“What are the other difficulties?”
“Well, d’ye see, they’re troublesome. We can’t git the horses out o’ the camp without bein’ seen, for the red rascals would see what we were at in a jiffy. Then, if we do git ’em out, we can’t go off without our bales, an’ we needn’t think to take ’em from under the nose o’ the chief and his squaws without bein’ axed questions. To go off without them would niver do at all.”
