He was not afraid of the soldier chiefs. They fought honorably. They did not shut their enemies up in cells and take their arms away. They made war in the open air and on the hills. A shout of joy was about to break from his lips when the jailer entered the corridor much excited. He talked as he came, “I’ll take the redskin along—anyhow.”
He made a great many signs to his captive, but Howling Wolf only understood one or two of them. “Come with me,” and “I’ll kill you.”
He drew his blanket round him and thought. “I will go. I will at least escape these walls. If I die I will die under the sky where the sun can see me.”
He quietly followed the sheriff outside, but when he saw the handcuffs he rebelled and shook his head.
The sheriff made bungling signs again and said, “All right—but if you try to run away I’ll bore a hole in ye big as a haystack—that’s all. I won’t stand any funny business.”
Howling Wolf comprehended nothing of all this save the motion toward the gun, which he took to mean that he was to be killed. The excitement of his captor, the mystery of all he did, his threatening gestures were convincing. But Howling Wolf was a chief. He had never flinched in battle and as he felt the wind of the wide sky on his face he lifted his head and said in his heart:
“If I am to die, I am ready; but I will die fighting.”
The sheriff motioned him to get into his buggy and he obeyed—for the hand of the sheriff was on his revolver—and they rode through the town, which was almost deserted. Far up the street Howling Wolf could hear the noise of the drum and his heart swelled big with a sense of coming trouble. Was he being led out to be tortured? Perhaps he would be permitted to fight his way to death? “No matter—I am ready.”
A man at the door of the drug store called jovially:
“Where are you going, Mr. Sheriff?”