“’Cause I see the bloody cuss at Rock Island, whisperin’ round old Black-Hawk, and it looked bad to me, somehow. It will be a ’markably good thing when he is hung up out of harm’s way.”
“That good thing will be very likely to happen if we have the good luck to catch them. Ha! What Indian girl is that?”
“Minneoba, the daughter of Black-Hawk,” replied the girl, coming forward. “Let not Loud Tempest fear that she will speak the words she hears in the lodge of her white father in the ear of the Sacs. Minneoba is not a creeping serpent, and will not betray her friends.”
“Loud Tempest, eh? Poetical name the Sacs have given me, though for what cause I do not know. What have you there, Dix?”
An orderly had appeared at the door and saluted.
“Caught a Pottawatomie, just now, who claims that he has something to say.”
“Who is he?”
“Little Fox.”
“Pah! I don’t think much can be made out of him. However, bring him in, and let us hear what he has to say.”
The orderly turned and beckoned, and an Indian, greasy and smoke-begrimed, with a face which bore evident signs of hard potations, appeared in the doorway. This “lord of the forest” was very drunk. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he found it easiest to stand by the aid of the door-post.