"Go," he said to them in a firm voice, "return to the tents of your tribe. Tell your brothers, who were never mine, but who at times have granted me a cordial hospitality, that Moukapec, the great Sachem of the Coras of the lakes, takes back his liberty: he gives up all claim to fire and water in their villages; he wishes to have nothing more in common with them; and if the Apache dogs prowl round him, and seek him, they will find him ever ready to meet them face to face on the warpath. I have spoken."
The Buffalo chiefs had listened to these words with that calmness which never abandons the Indians; not a feature on their faces had quivered. When the Coras warrior finished speaking, Black Cat looked at him fixedly, and replied to him with a cold and cutting accent—
"I have heard a crow, the Coras are cowardly squaws, to whom the Apache warriors will give petticoats. Moukapec is a prairie dog, the sunbeams hurt his eyes, he will make his lair with the paleface hares, my nation no longer knows him."
"Much good may it do him," Valentine remarked with a smile, while Eagle-wing shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of insults.
"I retire," Black Cat continued; "ere the owl has twice saluted the sun, the scalps of the palefaces will be fastened to my girdle."
"And," the second chief added, "the young men of my tribe will make war whistles of the white thieves' bones."
"Very good," Valentine replied, with a crafty smile; "try it, we are ready to receive you, and our rifles carry a long distance."
"The palefaces are boasting and yelping dogs," Black Cat said again. "I shall soon return."
"All the better," said Valentine; "but in the meanwhile, as I suppose you have nothing more to say to us, I fancy it is time for you to rejoin your friends, who must be growing impatient at your absence."
Black Cat gave a start of anger at this parting sarcasm; but repressing the passion that inflamed him, he folded himself haughtily in his buffalo robe, remounted the raft with his comrade, and they rapidly retired from the island.