"My brothers did well. Unicorn is one of the first sachems of his nation. His tongue is not forked: he gives his heart once, and takes it back no more. Unicorn's heart belongs to the hunters."
These simple words were uttered with the majesty and grandeur the Indians know so well how to assume when they think proper. The two men vowed their gratitude, and the chief continued:—
"Unicorn is returning to his village with his wife: his young men are awaiting him twenty paces from here. He would be happy if the hunters would consent to accompany him there."
"Chief," Valentine answered, "we came into the prairie to hunt the buffalo."
"Well, what matter? My brothers will hunt with me and my young men; but if they wish to prove to me that they accept my friendship, they will follow me to my village."
"The chief is mounted, while we are on foot."
"I have horses."
Any further resistance would have been a breach of politeness, and the hunters accepted the invitation. Valentine, whom accident had brought on to the prairies of the Rio Gila and Del Norte, was in his heart not sorry to make friends there, and have allies on whose support he could reckon in case of need. The squaw had by this time risen: she timidly approached her husband, and held up the child, saying in a soft and frightened voice,—
"Kiss this warrior."
The chief took the frail creature in his muscular arms, and kissed it repeatedly with a display of extraordinary tenderness, and then returned it to the mother. The latter wrapped the babe in a small blanket, then placed it on a plank shaped like a cradle, and covered with dry moss, fastened a hoop over the place where its head rested, to guard it from the burning beams of the sun, and hung the whole on her back by means of a woolen strap passing over her forehead.