The Prophet shook his head.
“I can learn from my spirit whether he is alive or dead, perhaps,” he replied; “but Monedo does not care to seek for a pale-face; he hates the white race, as I do.”
“You have a queer way of showing it,” exclaimed Cute. “I should have been like poor uncle Ned, without any hair on the top of my head, by this time, if it had not been for you.”
“Why have you spared our lives?” asked Percy. “The Indian seldom extends mercy to a captive, I have heard.”
The Prophet laughed disdainfully.
“You have heard and read many things about the Indian,” he replied; “but they are spoken and written by the pale-faces, and there is little truth in them. I have spared your life that you may bear a message to the surveyor’s camp for me. But first you shall partake of food with me. You must feel the need of some refreshment.”
“Well, I feel peckish, and no mistake,” answered Cute. “So if you have got any fodder, just tote it along.”
“Something to eat would not come amiss,” said Percy Vere. “We intended to have been back with game to our camp before this.”
The Prophet laughed in his forbidding manner.
“Your camp will not get any game on this side of the river,” he rejoined. “A dozen of my warriors guard the mouth of the ravine, and it will be sure destruction to the pale-face who attempts to pass through it. You would have fallen into the ambush, had you not turned to the right and ascended the cliff.”