“It is a Pawnee horse, and that is enough.”
“The horse was not here last night, but it was here early this morning,” announced White Wolf. “The American did not go out and get it. I am sure of that. If he did, why should he have brought it here, if he had stolen it? He could have easily made off with it, and others. No; the thief who took the horse from the Americans has returned it, as is right. Let the man who claims to own the horse come forward. But I think there is nothing more to be said.”
The soldier was sitting, in his stained blue clothes, and gazing around with a good-natured smile on his hairy face; but Scar Head could see that he was thinking fast, and ready to spring for the lodge and his gun.
“Are you going to send him away with the horse?”
“Who owns the horse?” White Wolf replied. “Why was it left at my lodge door if not for the American to take with him? Somebody had bad dreams, and went and got the horse, so that he might sleep.”
“In that case, the man deserves a present,” Skidi declared. “Let a present be given in exchange for the horse and the American may go.”
“To whom shall the present be given?” White Wolf inquired.
“I will take the present, and give it to the man who owns the horse,” said Skidi. “But of course if he has done this good deed he may wish to be secret about it, and if he is accused of having done an evil deed in the first place, he does not wish to be pointed at as a thief.”
“The American chief sent no present. He only asked for a horse that had been taken from him. Here it is, left on the prairie at my door, and I give it back to him.”