Again the two crouched side by side, each with an arm over the other, and watching like cats for the chance to seize an advantage. As a feeler, Jack tried the same trick his foe had used, but the Sauk was too watchful and was scarcely disturbed. All at once the pale face slid his arm down until it rested on the girdle at the waist of the Indian. Then joining his two hands and pressing him until he could hardly breathe, Jack raised him like a flash, clear of his feet, and made as if to throw him forward on his face. At the instant the Sauk put forth his frantic efforts to save himself from going in that direction, Jack reversed the enginery, and sent him backward on his head with a shock that made the ground tremble.
The fall was terrific, and looking down at the motionless figure, Jack believed he had broken his neck.
"I hope I have," he muttered in the flush of his excitement, "but that kind are tough—helloa!"
The prostrate youth began to gasp and make spasmodic movements of his limbs—enough to prove he was alive.
While Jack stood surveying him, as if waiting another attack, the mob broke into the most frightful yells and made a rush for him. He had overthrown those that had been matched against him, and now they meant to kill him; but Jack's faith in Ogallah was not misplaced. He and his brother warriors interfered in such a vigorous manner that not a hair of the boy's head was harmed, and, turning around, he walked into the lodge of the chieftain, conscious that he had won a great victory.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE WAR FEAST.
Jack Carleton's triumph over the Indian youth was complete. In a fair wrestling bout he had flung him to the ground with a force that drove the breath from his body, and gave him a more vivid idea of the white man's views of that athletic amusement than he had ever entertained before. But what was to be the outcome of this affair was more than the boy could guess. Physical prowess always commands respect whether the spectators be civilized or savage; but it does not insure against persecution.
"I have made them more revengeful than before," was the thought of the youth, after he hurried back into Ogallah's lodge, and sat panting from his exertion: "they hate me because I am of another race and am in their hands. They are afraid of the chief and, therefore, they will be more careful and I must be the same."