"Well, Wolf Ear, I can only say I am sorry that you should have been carried away by this error——"
"By what right do you call it error?" interrupted the other with a flash of his eyes.
"We will not discuss it. It will do no good, and is likely to do harm. I need not be told that you belong to the hostiles, and, if trouble comes, will fight against the whites."
"Yes, you are right," calmly replied the Ogalalla, compressing his thin lips and nodding his head a single time.
"Your father and brother, whom I have never seen, would shoot me and my folk if they had the chance."
"Yes, and so would my mother: she is a warrior too."
"But suppose you and I or my father meet, or you have the chance to harm my mother and little sister, Edith?"
"Wolf Ear can never raise his hand against them, no matter what harm they may seek to do him. I do not have to tell you that you and I will always be friends, whatever may come."
This assurance would have had more weight with young Kingsland could he have felt certain that Wolf Ear was truthful in declaring that he did not suspect his identity at the moment of firing at him.
"I believe he meant to take my life," was his thought, "and still meant to do so, when he raised his Winchester a second time, but as we looked into each other's face, he weakened. His people are treacherous, and this pretence of goodwill will not last, or, if it be genuine for the present, it will soon change."