"Will not the white chief wait until spring?" asked Lame Foot, whose guile made up for his physical defect.
The others studied Colonel Cummings' face as the question was put to him. They saw the purpose—postponement, which might bring freedom for them, and also a retention of the captive women.
The colonel's answer did not need interpreting. "No!" he said, and struck his knees with his open palms.
"Why should two squaws matter?" asked Shoot-at-the-Tree. "Are there not many everywhere? We will give the white chief some of our ponies."
"Your ponies floated, belly up, down the river moons ago," said Matthews.
Twenty pairs of eyes sparkled with hate. That was news indeed!
Lame Foot spoke again. There was a mathematical phase of the terms which troubled him. "Why should four die for two?" he demanded. "Among the whites, has a squaw the value of two soldiers?"
Matthews answered gravely that it was so. The brave snorted contemptuously.
Canada John shook his head. "Thus comes much evil because we shot the pinto buffalo."
At that point, the hoof-sheaths that trimmed a rope near the entrance rattled. The semicircle craned their necks. A plump hand was pulling aside the flap of the lodge. Then, through the low aperture and into the light of the fire stepped an Indian woman. She flung back a head-shawl and faced red man and white. A murmur came from the braves. It was Brown Mink.