"I can say neither yes nor no now, for my comrades must be consulted. We are going into the Yellowstone Basin after gold—"
"Ha, ha!" laughed Dagard; "Another dive into the famous Northern El Dorado, where the way is paved with gold and silver, and the fishponds are boiling water whence one draws the poisson d'avril ready cooked!"
"Do you not believe it is likely?" queried Kidd, earnestly.
"As you say, neither yes nor no. We gave the 'Firehole' a wide berth, for we are not at home in sulphur marshes, soda lakes, and burning pits, like that of the bad place. If there be gold there, though—"
"I promise you that," returned Kidd, confidently; "all points to it. Will you join us—sharing and sharing alike—if my men agree to the union? There is enough and to spare for all of us. Besides, blood being spilt of the Indians, I am afraid my men need be five hundred, and yet prove feeble. These mountain Indians are hardy, not given to the rum bottle, and warlike above all their brethren of the plains."
"They fought like devils incarnate, I repeat. Half my command is disabled or dead, and we were lost irretrievably but for your intervention. I say that again. But what am I to do with the women?"
"What women?"
"I have under my charge sixteen women, that is, those over twenty-five years, and fourteen young girls, to say nothing of still tenderer children—"
"Oh, pshaw! If you are dragging your families about with you," began the gold hunter, contemptuously.
"You are off the track. These are valuables, not encumbrances," rejoined Dagard, tartly. "In two words, they are the captives of the Dakotas, taken away from their burnt cabins in recent raids, and they were placed in my charge so that the Indian agents might discover no traces of them. Thus I have secured the friendship of the Sioux, and if the English come to attack our little Red River Republic, they will find us reinforced by plenty o' fighting men!"