Wallulah shrunk as if he had struck her a blow; then she looked at him desperately, pleadingly.
“Do not say such cruel things. I will be a faithful wife to you. I will never see the white man again.”
The sneering malice in his eyes gave way to the gleam of exultant anger.
“Faithful! You knew you were to be my woman when you let him put his arms around you and say soft things to you. Faithful! You would leave Snoqualmie for him now, could it be so. But you say well that you will never see him again.”
She gazed at him in terror.
“What do you mean? Has anything happened to him? Have they harmed him?”
Over the chief’s face came the murderous expression that was there when he slew the Bannock warrior at the torture stake.
“Harmed him! Do you think that he could meet you alone and say sweet things to you and caress you,—you who were the same as my squaw,—and I not harm him? He is dead; I slew him.”
False though it was, in so far as Snoqualmie claimed to have himself slain Cecil, it was thoroughly in keeping with Indian character. White captives were often told, “I killed your brother,” or, “This is your husband’s scalp,” when perhaps the person spoken of was alive and well.
“Dead!”