"Let my brother speak, he has the right to ask everything of me."
"Make peace with my old Bright-eye,"
"As my brother desires it," the chief said, "I will do so willingly; and, as a sign of reconciliation, I beg him to accept the dollar you have given me."
The hunter's first impulse was to decline it; but he thought better of it, took the dollar, and carefully placed it in his belt. Black knew not how to express his gratitude to the Count, who had really made him a landed proprietor; and the same day the American and his son chose the land on which the plantation should be established. The Count drew up on a leaf of his pocketbook a regular deed of sale, which was signed by himself, Bright-eye, and Ivon, as witnesses, by Black as purchaser, and at the foot of which Natah Otann drew the totem of his tribe, and an animal intended to represent a bear, which formed his speaking but most emblematical signature. The chief, had he pleased, could have signed like the rest, but he wished to hide from all the instruction he owed to the White Buffalo. Black preciously placed the deed between the leaves of his family bible, and said to the Count, while squeezing his hand hard enough to smash it—
"Remember that you have in John Black a man who will let his bones be broken for you, whenever you think proper."
Diana said nothing, but she gave the young man a look which paid him amply for what he had done for the family.
"Attention," Bright-eye said, in a whisper, the first time he found himself alone with Ivon; "from this day watch carefully over your master, for a terrible danger threatens him."