"Looking up, I told the noble savage, for I have the right to call him noble, all."—Page 63.
For some time, all was silent.
Then I felt my hand clasped in the cold fingers of two small and dusky ones, and raised to the lips of Clo-ke-ta.
"My brother is right," she said. "If he made Clo-ke-ta his squaw, and left her to return to the East, Clo-ke-ta would die."
Immediately after, I and the Warning Devil were alone in the gloom.
It almost seemed to me as if Par-a-wau must have resented my implied refusal to marry his daughter. But he did not. Nay! on the contrary I soon found he either assisted me in my wish for liberation, or was glad to get rid of me. Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that my captor also assisted in promoting my liberation. In his wish to become the son-in-law of Old Spotted Tail, he was, at least, equally anxious to get rid of my presence in the tribe. On the ninth day of my captivity, the aged chief gave me permission to pick up my stakes and quit my enforced camping-ground.
In doing so, he presented me with many presents, among which was a war-club, magnificently decorated with Indian carvings. This, he informed me through Par-a-wau, would be a protection to me from all hostile tribes, east of the Rocky Mountains.