"No; Unicorn wishes to make a bargain with the palefaces."
"Come, chief, explain yourself; perhaps your intentions are as you describe them. I do not wish to reproach myself with having refused to listen to you."
The Indian smiled.
"Good!" he said. "The great white chief is becoming reasonable. Let him listen, then, to the words Unicorn will pronounce."
"Go on, chief; my comrades and myself are listening."
"The palefaces are thieving dogs," the chief said in a rough voice; "they carry on a continual war with the redskins, and buy their scalps as if they were peltry; but the Comanches are magnanimous warriors, who disdain to avenge themselves. The squaws of the white men are in their power: they will restore them."
At these words a shudder of terror ran along the ranks of the hunters; their courage failed them; they had only one desire left—that of saving those who had so wretchedly fallen into the hands of these bloodthirsty men.
"On what conditions will the Comanches restore their prisoners?" Don Miguel asked, whose heart was contracted at the thought of his daughter, who was also a prisoner. He secretly cursed Valentine, whose fatal advice was the sole cause of the frightful evil that assailed him at this moment.
"The palefaces," the chief continued, "will dismount and arrange themselves in a line. Unicorn will choose from among his enemies those whom he thinks proper to carry off as prisoners; the rest will be free, and all the women restored."
"Those conditions are harsh, chief. Can you not modify them?"