"'Tis a brave girl," remarked Red Knife, smiling dubiously, for he had his own ideas about using a dagger on himself before he had struck out all he could; "but the steel was useless, my sister being under the guard of the Sacred Emblem, and my warriors would have fought to the last shot for her."
As, in our other Indian stories, we seem to have pourtrayed their treatment of white women in a different light, we beg to say in this digression that there is really no contradiction in sense. The southern Indians are not to be trusted with women, but the northern races and those descended from the ancient nations of the Northeast and Atlantic coast are of opposite morality. The latter will make white women slaves, but never their wives. The Half-breeds spring from the union of red women and white men, it is to be remembered, which in no wise gainsays our statement of an incontestable truth.
Cherokee Bill was too profound an observer and was too familiar with the thoughts of white people and red people, to say nothing of Mexican ones, not to understand Rosario's doubts and dreads. So he hastened to inform her that Jim Ridge would soon be present. This intelligence much exalted her; hope at once was kindled in her bosom and warmed her heart with its beneficent rays. It seemed to her that this celebrated adventurer's intervention must be advantageous to her. This was apart from Mr. Dearborn's promising that he would confer with the Man of the Mountain and compact for her rescue and Miss Maclan's. It is true the Cherokee had only saved her; but, perhaps, already something had been done in as effectual, if not in so dashing, a mode to save her dear companion.
She found time to ask Bill about his partner in the friendly abduction, but he had only spoken with Ridge, who had seen nothing more of Filditch than himself.
"Patience," said he, calm as a "whole red man," "he would not have travelled with me in the warpath unless he was capable of taking care of himself alone."
Quite as impatient as the girl were all the Piegans to receive the famous old explorer; but they had donned the motionless mask which the savages use to hide even the deepest feelings on public occasions.
If we were in town, we should say the hour of twelve sounded when all the Indians, questioning the country with glittering eyes, grunted with pleasure. A horseman was seen to be clearing a piney wood at the extreme limit of the horizon, and gallop in a beeline towards them. He was alone. At a glance he was recognised as Jim Ridge.