"How so!" I demanded.
"These people need horses. We need arms. We will make a trade with them."
"They look like very bad people," objected Kachina.
And in all truth, they were an evil group of swart, thick-set, cruel-visaged savages.
"No matter," asserted the Seneca. "They are on the far side of the stream from us. We will see that they stay there until we have finished our business with them. Otetiani and Tawannears will ride across and talk to their chief, and Gahano and Peter must move briskly about the wood to appear a numerous band. Lead the horses around where they can be seen. Call to one another. Walk about where they can see a part of you. We shall fool them. Their need is bitter."
None of us was disposed to argue with him, for if the need of the strange savages was bitter, ours was no less so. We had two lances wherewith to hunt and to defend ourselves, not even a knife amongst the four of us. Weapons we must have to dare traverse this tremendous sweep of open country, roamed by the most predacious Indians on the continent.
I whistled up the spotted stallion and one of his mares, and Tawannears and I mounted and rose forth from the trees, making a great play as we came into the open on the river bank of handing over our lances and other dummy weapons to Peter, who straightway marched back into the wood. We also pretended to shout orders to different points along the bank, and the Dutchman and Kachina whooped the answers to us or responded with whistle-signals. The band on the opposite bank had dragged themselves to their feet, and stared sullenly at us as we splashed into the shallows, and with upraised arms signaling peace.
"They look much stouter than any tribe we have seen," I remarked. "Why, they wear body-armor, cuirasses of buffalo-hide. There is one who has an arrow still sticking under his arm."
Tawannears frowned.
"Kachina was right," he said. "These are bad people. I remember now. They are the Tonkawa."*