“What will you do?”
“Perhaps I will do nothing; but they shall not be burned.”
“Has my brother lost his senses? He surely does not mean what he says.”
“You will see that I mean it. I am going to the lodge, White Shield. I am tired of this deviltry.”
Wilder turned his back upon the crowd of dancing and yelling Indians, and retired to his lodge, where he pondered his own situation and that of Flora Robinette, until he fell asleep.
In the morning there was a great commotion in the village. Preparations were made for the torture of the two white captives, and all the Blackfeet were early astir. Two stout stakes were set in the ground, near the middle of the village, and the victims were brought to them, surrounded and followed by a motley throng of Indians, of all ages and both sexes.
Dennis Regan, who had not spoken a word since his vow of the previous night, was bound to one post, and Pap Byers to the other, and what may be called the small torturing commenced. Women and children assailed the white men with all sorts of opprobrious epithets, beat them with sticks, kicked them, pinched them, pulled their hair, and provoked them by every means in their power.
Byers hurled back their taunts indignantly, and abused the Blackfeet to the best of his ability. He knew what sort of a death they intended for him, and he hoped to arouse them to such fury that, in a moment of anger, they might kill him at once. He boasted of the number of their braves that he had slain, and accused them of cowardice, taunting them with not daring to take the life of a white man, even when he was bound before them. They could not hurt him, he said, and he dared them to do their worst, as a white warrior could teach them how to die. The Irishman remained silent. When he was spoken to, he pointed to his tongue, and shook his head; but not a word escaped his lips.
The warriors soon put a stop to this play. Scattering the women and children, they brought poles and twigs, which they piled in a circle, nearly waist high, around the victims. Then, amid diabolical yells and screeches, fire was put to the piles, and the torture commenced.