Then, they swore by everything, from the sun and the moon to the cow in the meadow, that they were not responsible for the doings of Le Grand Diable, who was an Iroquois. Moreover, they vowed he had hurriedly taken his departure for the north four days before, carrying with him the Sioux wife, the strange woman and the white child. As I had no object in arousing their resentment, I heard their words without voicing my own suspicions and giving over the booty, whiffed pipes with them. But I had no intention of being tricked by the rascally Sioux, and while they and the Mandanes celebrated the peace treaty, I saddled my horse and spurred off for their encampment, glad to see the last of a region where I had suffered much and gained nothing.
CHAPTER XVIII
LAPLANTE AND I RENEW ACQUAINTANCE
The warriors had spoken truth to the Mandanes. Le Grand Diable was not in the Sioux lodges. I had been at the encampment for almost a week, daily expecting the warriors' return, before I could persuade the people to grant me the right of search through the wigwams. In the end, I succeeded only through artifice. Indeed, I was becoming too proficient in craft for the maintenance of self-respect. A child—I explained to the surly old men who barred my way—had been confused with the Sioux slaves. If it were among their lodges, I was willing to pay well for its redemption. The old squaws, eying me distrustfully, averred I had come to steal one of their naked brats, who swarmed on my tracks with as tantalizing persistence as the vicious dogs. The jealous mothers would not hear of my searching the tents. Then I was compelled to make friends with the bevies of young squaws, who ogle newcomers to the Indian camps. Presently, I gained the run of all the lodges. Indeed, I needed not a little diplomacy to keep from being adopted as son-in-law by one pertinacious old fellow—a kind of embarrassment not wholly confined to trappers in the wilds. But not a trace of Diable and his captives did I find.
I had hobbled my horses—a string of six—in a valley some distance from the camp and directly on the trail, where Little Fellow was awaiting me. Returning from a look at their condition one evening, I heard a band of hunters had come from the Upper Missouri. I was sitting with a group of men squatted before my fatherly Indian's lodge, when somebody walked up behind us and gave a long, low whistle.
"Mon Dieu! Mine frien', the enemy! Sacredie! 'Tis he! Thou cock-brained idiot! Ho—ho! Alone among the Sioux!" came the astonished, half-breathless exclamation of Louis Laplante, mixing his English and French as he was wont, when off guard.
Need I say the voice brought me to my feet at one leap? Well I remembered how I had left him lying with a snarl between his teeth in the doorway of Fort Douglas! Now was his chance to score off that grudge! I should not have been surprised if he had paid me with a stab in the back.
"What for—come you—here?" he slowly demanded, facing me with a revengeful gleam in his eyes. His English was still mixed. There was none of the usual light and airy impudence of his manner.