“Will you come here, all of you, and join the northern Comanches and your brothers the Kiowas and sit down forever, here on your land, where the buffalo are many and the deer are running in the thickets as many as the leaves on the trees? Here the sun is warm, the grass is good, the water is sweet and cool.
“Will you do all these things, Yellow Hand? Are you done fighting with the white man? I promise you that next year, and the year after, the white soldiers will take the winter trail against the villages of the Cheyennes and their friends. No matter how cold it is, no matter how deep the snow is, our men will find their village and wipe them out. You Indians must stop stealing horses and cattle and killing our men on the ranches.
“Will you Quahradas, who are wise men, make your peace first and save your women and your children? If I give you this man will you open the trails for the cows that want to go north? Will you come in here and sit down? Promise me that, Yellow Hand! Speak only the truth to me! I know how to punish men who lie.”
The face of the old savage still worked with rage; his eyes still were riveted on the miscreant who stood bound before him, tragic pledge for the future safety of the Trail. But now Yellow Hand knew himself to be the leader of his people. He rose with his arms folded.
“I speak the truth, now, here, even as the chief of the white men speaks it,” said he. “You have done as you have said you would do. Give us that man that you said you would give us. We will do with him as your people would do with us. We will try him in our way. I will talk with my men. We will punish him in our way. Then when we have done that we will wrap our robes about us. We will come in here and sit down in this land, which we know is good.
“I can see that the white people are too many. They are making roads across the grass. Some day the buffalo will be gone. Over their trails will walk these new cattle—have we not seen them come? I can hear their hoofs coming, as many as the wind can count among the trees. It is done. I have said all I want to say.”
“Rudabaugh,” said Griswold, turning to him at length, with no pity in his eye, “get ready to die. God may have no mercy on your soul. You’ve shown none—not once in all your life. Take what you’ve earned!”
Rudabaugh broke out with denunciation of the utter illegality of all this.
“I know it,” said Griswold. “But this court carries no records. No one will ever know.”
He pushed forward the man, who now so trembled he scarce could stand. The sinewy fingers of Yellow Hand gripped his shoulder like eagle talons. A warrior caught him on the opposite side. He was dragged away, fighting, to the door of the largest lodge.