"'You ought to have brought your furs to me. I would have given you real money for them,' said the agent.
"They went away very sorrowful. After many days they came back to us again. We were very glad when we saw them coming—but we wondered that their canoes were not piled high with the things we had told them to buy.
"When we heard their story we were very sorrowful. We talked about it a great deal. We said, 'What shall we do?'
"Then we made up our minds. This is what we decided. We said: 'The next white man that comes among us we shall hold. We shall not let him go until he pays to us a sum of money, seven hundred dollars, equal to that which we have lost. Since he is a white man he or his friends must make up to us that which we have lost at the hands of a white man.'
"So now you see—you are the man. And it is you that must pay back to us the money."
"But I haven't seven hundred dollars."
"Then you must promise that you will pay it, or get your friends to pay it. These many years you have come here among us. We will trust you for that. It is much that we should trust you—when it is one of your own people who brought such suffering and loss upon us."
"But this is an outrage!" said Mr. Cabot. "I never did anything to you but good. You know that."
"Yes, we know that," said the Indian, gravely. "But we shall leave you here unless you pay. You cannot find your way out alone—even if you could stand and walk upon your broken leg. We shall not carry you from here unless you pay the money. Is that not so?"
He turned to the others, who had not said one word all this while: they had been merely looking on and listening.