"Good! What will the Chief do to insure his word, and that the Comanche Sachems may put faith in what he says?"
"Blue-fox will leave a hostage."
"The Sachem of the Buffalo Apaches is a great brave; what warrior of his nation can die in his stead, if he forget to liberate his pledge?"
"I will give the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood, the bone of my bone. My son will take my place."
The Comanches exchanged a very meaning glance. There was a rather lengthened silence, during which the Apache, haughtily folded in his buffalo robe, stoically waited, and it was impossible to read in his motionless features one of the emotions that agitated him. At length Black-deer spoke again.
"My brother has recalled to my memory," he said, "the years of our youth, when we were both children of the Snake Pawnees, and hunted in company the elk and the asshata in the prairies of the Upper Missouri. The early years are the sweetest; the words of my brother made my heart tremble with joy. I will be kind to him; his son snail be my substitute, though he is still very young; but he knows how to crawl like the serpent and fly like the eagle, and his arm is strong in fight. But Blue-fox will reflect before pledging his word. If on the evening of the twenty-eighth sun my brother has not returned to take his place at the foot of the stake of torture, his son will die."
"I thank my brother," the Apache replied in a firm voice, "on the twenty-eighth sun I shall return: here is my open hand."
"And here is mine."
The two enemies clasped in cordial pressure the two hands which, a few minutes before, had been seeking so eagerly to take each other's life; then Blue-fox unfastened the cascabel skin that attached his long hair in the form of a cap on the top of his head, and removed the white eagle plume fixed above his right ear.
"My brother will lend me his knife," he said.