“You know that I have no wish to leave you, my father; but I will promise; only save the life of this white man. It must be him whom the warriors were chasing last night, when there was such a noise in the direction of the village. He was nearly killed by the fall from that cliff.”
“I will dress his wounds, and we will take care of him.”
“But the warriors will seek for him this morning. They will go to the spot where we found him, to see his body and to take his scalp. Not finding him there, they will follow our trail, and will come here.”
“It is true. He must be hid.”
“But where can he be hid? He is too weak to be moved.”
“He shall remain where he is, in the sacred room, which the warriors never enter. I will tell them that the white man was killed by his fall, and that I buried him. I found a scalp upon him, which I will give to the warriors, and I will tell them that it is his scalp.”
The old man drew from the breast of his robe the scalp of Paul Robinette, and showed it to the girl, who shuddered as she looked at it.
“But that is a gray scalp,” she said, “and this is a young man.”
“The warriors had not seen him, José tells me, and they do not know whether he is young or old.”