Deerfoot in The Mountains

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"I want to cheer for Deerfoot! If I don't I'll bust!"

"You will get all the busting you want from him if he finds out we came here, after he told us to stay at home."

"By gracious! That's so; I forgot it. I'm glad you stopped me; we must keep mum. Look!"

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CHAPTER XVIII.

DISCIPLINE IN THE RANKS.

The force of the impact and the crushing weight of the Shawanoe's body knocked Taggarak senseless for the moment. He lay panting, with eyes half closed and his countenance glistening with moisture.

Deerfoot, without removing his knees, watched the eyes until they slowly opened and glared upward with a dazed expression. The youth had removed his fingers from the wrist of the chief. He now bent his face close to his and asked:

"Who now is master—the Blackfoot or the Shawanoe? Whose God is the greater—Taggarak's or Deerfoot's?"

But the chieftain was game. He had put up a hurricane fight and had been conquered—conquered by a youth who carried no weapon in his hand, and who could have driven out his life at any moment during the progress of the battle. Instead of slaying his victim, the Shawanoe had put one indignity after another upon him.