The celebrated Indian chief drew himself up and gave Dave a long, earnest look. He evidently saw that the young pioneer meant what he said. He was about to speak, to offer Dave a chance to return home. But then he remembered what had happened at the underground storehouse, and hesitated.
"Pontiac will see the white young man again," he said briefly, and left as abruptly as he had come.
The conversation made Dave more uneasy in mind than before. He had not thought that the red men would consider him a spy. If they continued to do that, it might go extra hard with him in the near future. Pontiac had said that the French and the English put a spy to death, but he had not added that the Indians frequently took a spy and tortured him most cruelly, yet such was a fact. Only two years before a spy had been caught by the Indians near the Great Lakes, and it was a matter of record that the red men had placed him upon the ground flat on his back and built a fire upon his breast, leaving him to burn slowly to death! The thought of this sent a cold shiver down Dave's backbone.
"I hope they don't torture me!" he muttered. "Oh, anything but that!" There was no consolation in the thought that Pontiac had said he might be more merciful than the French or English. He knew how cruel all red men could be when their evil passions were aroused.
When Pontiac came away from his interview with Dave, he was beyond a doubt in a quandary. His plans against the English were many, and evidently he was much worried, thinking Dave knew much more than was the fact. It had galled him to let the summer pass without striking the cherished blow, but he had great hopes for the summer to come; and history has already recorded what he did shortly after the time of which I am now writing.
Pontiac was in deep thought when a young brave came to him and said two
French hunters wished to speak to him. Thinking they might have news of
value, he consented to the interview, and was soon in conversation with
Jean Bevoir and Jacques Valette.
Of Bevoir Pontiac had heard several times. He knew the French trader to be a two-faced rascal, and probably he despised him accordingly, for, judged solely by Indian standards, Pontiac was an upright and honest man. His duplicity was only that of the red man when on the war-path. In his personal dealing he would not have cheated a fellow Indian or a white man out of a farthing.
Jean Bevoir was not long in coming to the point.
He said he had heard that Dave Morris had been made a prisoner by the Indians. If Pontiac wanted to get rid of the young fellow he, Bevoir, would take him off his hands and be glad to do it.
"But what will my French friend do with this Morris?" asked Pontiac.