"Our triumph will cost us our life," she replied.
"What matters," the Red Wolf said, "so long as we conquer our enemies?"
And, drawing his knife, he began skinning the catamount. The woman looked at his operations for a while; then making him a parting sign, she re-entered the canebrake, where she was speedily lost to view. An hour later, the Indian chief, laden with the cat's head and the snake's skin, started off toward his village at full gallop. An ironical smile played around his lips; he needed no excuse to explain his absence, for the spoils he brought with him proved that he had spent the night in hunting.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE INDIAN VILLAGE.
Now that the exigencies of our story compel us to enter into closer relations with the Prairie Indians, we will introduce to the reader the primitive population of that territory, generally called Blackfoot Indians. The Blackfeet formed, at the period when this history occurred, a powerful nation, divided into three tribes, speaking the same language. First, the tribe of the Siksekai, or Blackfeet proper; next, the Kenhas, or Blood Indians; and lastly, the Piékanns. This nation, when the three tribes were united, could bring under arms nearly eight thousand warriors, which enables us to estimate the population at twenty-five thousand souls. But, at the present day, smallpox has decimated these Indians, and reduced them to a very much smaller number. The Blackfeet traverse the prairies adjoining the Rocky Mountains, sometimes even scaling those mountains between the three forks of the Missouri, called Gallatin, Jefferson, and Madison rivers. The Piékanns, however, go as far as Marine river, to trade with the American Fur Company; they also barter with the Hudson's Bay Society, and even with the Mexicans of Santa Fé. This nation, continually at war with the whites, whom they attack whenever they have the chance, are very little known, but greatly feared, especially for their skill in stealing horses, and, more than that, for their notorious cruelty and bad faith. As we have to deal principally with the Kenhas, we will occupy ourselves more particularly with that tribe. The following is the origin of the name "Blood Indians," given to the Kenhas:—
Before the Blackfeet were divided, they happened one day to be encamped a short distance from seven or eight tents of the Sassi Indians. A quarrel arose between them about a woman carried off by the Sassis, in spite of the opposition of the Piékanns, and the Kenhas resolved to kill all their neighbours, a project which they carried out with extraordinary ferocity and cruelty. In the middle of the night they attacked the tents of the Sassis, and massacred them all during their sleep, without sparing even women, children, or old men; they scalped their victims, and regained their tents, after daubing their faces and hands with blood.
The Piékanns reproached them for this act of barbarity; a quarrel ensued, which speedily degenerated into a combat, in consequence of which the three Blackfoot tribes separated. The Kenhas then received the name of Blood Indians, which they still retain, and feel a pride in it, saying that no one insults them with impunity. The Kenhas are the most active and indomitable of the Blackfeet: they have always displayed more sanguinary and rapacious instincts than the other members of their nation, especially than the Piékanns, who are justly regarded as comparatively gentle and humane.
As the three Blackfoot tribes generally live far apart, Natah Otann must have acted with great skill, and displayed great patience, ere he succeeded in making them join, and consent to march under the same banner. At every moment he was constrained to employ all the resources suggested by his fertile mind, and evince great diplomacy, in order to prevent a rupture, which was always imminent between these men, whom no tie attached, and whose pride revolted at the least appearance of humiliation.