"I am Mackenzie's horse," the Big Gray Horse said proudly. "Officers and soldiers do not lie to Indians, nor kill their game, nor take their land from them for themselves. When the Indians give a pledge of peace the officers do not harm them, nor their women or children. They make the buffalo hunters keep away from the Indian's land and protect the Indian who does not go on the warpath."
"I know that is true"—the Old White Horse spoke earnestly—"for I lived many years in the White Horse Troop and have seen all these things myself. If Quannah would be friends with the big white chiefs, it would be better for him and for the Quahadas. Listen! He is speaking now."
The horses turned their eyes on the Quahada chief, who, with the best warriors of the tribe, faced the Kiowa runner. The Comanches, like the ponies, watched Quannah's face and waited to hear his words. Karolo, the Medicine Man, stood beside him.
Karolo had offered many prayer-sticks to the Great Spirit, asking that the Thunder Bird might be sent over the land with rain and that the buffaloes might be spared. But the Great Spirit was angry and would not listen. Then Karolo knew that it was because the white men had come on the Indians' land and were killing the buffaloes that belonged to the Great Spirit, who had said the buffaloes must not be killed except for food and clothing. Only by driving the white men away and saving the buffaloes, would the Great Spirit's anger be appeased.
Yet Karolo was sad. He knew that the white men were many times the number of the Comanches, and that their fire-sticks could reach much farther than the Quahada arrows. In his heart the old Medicine Man felt that the Indians could not win, but would be conquered and made prisoners by the white men, if they were not all killed in the fight. Quannah had talked this over with Karolo many, many times.
The chief looked past the Indians, past the tepees of the village, and fixed his eyes on the crest of a hill beyond the camp. For a little while he did not speak, then he glanced at the faces of his chiefs before he answered the Kiowa runner.
"Tell your chiefs that the Quahadas will join them against the white men."
He held out both his hands and the Kiowa grasped them, saying, "It is good!"
Turning quickly the messenger leaped to his pony's bare back. Sitting erect, he gave the loud, fierce battle cry of the Kiowas. Instantly the Quahadas answered it with their own call. Then the women, running from their tepees, and the children who stood beside them, took up the cry.
The Kiowa, leaning low on his pony's neck, darted out of sight, carrying word that Quannah would lead his warriors to join the fight against the white men.