“Of what use can the scalp be to you?” asked Benning, thinking that the agent had suddenly become very generous.
“If you had known Paul Robinette as well as I knew him, you would have known that he had some very queer points. One of his queer points was the fear that he would be scalped. He could not bear to think that his scalp should dry in an Indian lodge. He made me promise him most solemnly that if he should be killed, I would recover his scalp, and he gave me three thousand dollars as a fund to be applied to that purpose. I have no need of the money, but I am a man of my word, George Benning, and I will gladly transfer the amount to you if you will carry out the wish of my old friend, and will deliver the scalp to me. As for Flora, I don’t suppose that I am giving you much in that quarter. The desire of her father would weigh with her, no doubt, and I have told you what that was; but the young are not likely to mate with the old.”
“Nor the eagle with the buzzard,” thought Benning; but he did not put his thought into words. It seemed to him that the Scotchman was rather too generous, and he was silent, wondering what motive had urged this strange proposition.
As he stood there, looking at Laurie, he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He turned, and was confronted by the Crow chief.
“I have heard the talk of my white friends,” he said. “They seem to think that Silverspur is a bad man; but I know him. The sun may rise in the west some day. When it does so, I may believe that the ways of Silverspur are crooked; but not until then. In what direction did he go after leaving the rendezvous?”
“I heard that he recrossed the mountains by way of the South Pass,” replied Laurie. “He was seen traveling toward the south.”
“To the country of the Cheyennes, or the Arapahoes, or perhaps further. Wherever he is, he can be found. Bad Eye has said that the scalp of the white-haired chief shall not remain in a Blackfoot lodge, and the words of Bad Eye are not wind. Let my young friend stay with me. As for you, Red Hair, your tongue is not straight, and your talk does not please me.”
Martin Laurie, rebuffed by the Crow chief, left the village in high dudgeon, and George Benning remained, waiting impatiently for the development of Bad Eye’s intentions.