“Let us secure her while we can,” cried Multuomah.
“Mr. Blackie’s plan is the best,” cried Percy; “and I think the Prophet will yield Oneotah up to you, if I tell him you are here.”
This assurance surprised them all, and Glyndon received it incredulously.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BOY EMBASSADORS.
“There’s more ways than one to kill a cat,” remarked Robbins, bringing his Yankee shrewdness to bear upon this perplexing question. “What’s to hinder Multuomah from crossing the river some distance above with half his force, and so prevent the Prophet from retreating back to his village?”
Glyndon brightened up at this suggestion.
“That’s the idea, by Jericho!” he exclaimed. “I’ve always heard that two heads were better than one.”
“Even if one is a cabbage-head,” supplied Robbins, laughingly.
“I didn’t say that—though I don’t know whose head you allude to,” rejoined Glyndon, with a grim facetiousness. “But you have just hit the idea. Let the boys go. You can give Smoholler a wrinkle of what’s in store for him, Percy, if he don’t give up the girl; and when you come back safe we’ll just wake up these Smohollers lively.”
“I am in hopes to bring Oneotah back with me,” responded Percy Vere. “There are some good traits in this Prophet, notwithstanding his objection to having a railroad run through his territory. Nor do I believe he can be surprised.”