"Mount! Mount!"
At length the young man, partly convinced, obeyed the hunter. When the prisoners had mounted, the warriors surrounded them, and led them off at a gallop, till they caught up the column, of which they took the lead.
Despite the Count's resistance, Natah Otann and White Buffalo had not given up their plan of making him pass for Motecuhzoma, and placing him at the head of the Allied Nations. Still this plan had been modified, in this sense, that, as the young Count refused his help, they would force him to give it in spite of himself. The following is the way in which they intended to act. They had succeeded in persuading the Indians who accompanied them during the ostrich hunt, that the struggle sustained by the Count, and which had struck them with stupor, owing to the energetic resistance the two men had so long offered to fifty warriors, was a ruse invented by them to display their strength and power in the sight of all.
The Redskins, owing to their ignorance, are stupidly credulous. Natah Otann's clumsy falsehood, which any man but slightly civilized would have regarded with contempt, obtained the greatest success with these brutalized beings, and enhanced, in their eyes, the personal value of the men whom they saw continuing to live on good terms with their Chiefs, and remaining apparently free in the village.
Matters were too far advanced, the day chosen for the outbreak of the plot was too near, for the Chiefs to give counterorders to their allies, and concoct some other scheme to replace the prophet they had announced to the Missouri nations. If, on arriving at the rendezvous, the man they had expected was not presented to them, it was evident they would retire with their contingents, and that all would be broken off with no hope of recombination; but a catastrophe must be guarded against at all risks.
The resolution formed by the two Chiefs, desperate as it was, they were compelled to adopt through the suspicious nature of the circumstances, and they trusted to chance to make it succeed. The Count and his companion would march, so long as the expedition lasted, at the head of the attacking columns, without weapons it is true, but apparently free, while guarded by ten picked warriors, who would never leave them, and kill them on the slightest suspicious gesture. The plan was absurd, and, with other men than Indians, the impossibility would have been recognized in less than an hour; but, through its very impracticability, it offered chances of success, and this was chiefly owing to the belief the Indians held that the Count had no friends to attempt his rescue.
Ivon's flight had troubled Natah Otann for a few moments: but the discovery made in the forest, where he had sought shelter, of the body of a man clothed in the servant's dress, and half devoured by wild beasts, restored him all his serenity, by proving to him that he had nought to fear from the poor fellow's devotion.
Three hours prior to the departure of the column, the Chief had, on White Buffalo's revelations, had five spies secretly strangled. Red Wolf, on whom Natah Otann and White Buffalo placed unbounded confidence, and whose courage could not be doubted, was appointed head of the detachment to watch over the prisoners. Hence matters were in the best possible state. The two Chiefs marched about fifty paces ahead of their warriors, conversing in a low voice, and definitely arranging their final plans. White Buffalo described in a few words the position and their hopes.
"Our prospect is desperate," he said, "chance may make it fail or succeed: all depends upon the first attack. If, as I believe, we surprise the American garrison, and seize Fort Mackenzie, we shall have no further need of this Count, whose disappearance we can easily account for, by saying that he has reascended to heaven, because we are victors. However, we shall see; all will be decided in a few hours. Till then, courage and prudence."
Natah Otann made no reply; but cast a glance at Prairie-Flower, who cantered along in apparent carelessness on the flank of the column, which she had asked leave to accompany, and the Chief had gladly granted it. The warriors advanced in a long line, silently following one of those winding paths formed on the desert for centuries by the feet of wild beasts. The night was transparent and calm; the sky, embroidered with millions of stars, shed down on the landscape floods of melancholy light, harmonizing with the grand and primitive nature of the desert. About four in the morning, Natah Otann halted on the top of a wooded dell, in the centre of an immense clearing, where the entire detachment disappeared, without leaving a trace.