This was indeed true. The sad little wife was galloping after, riding a strong bay pony, the reins flapping loose, while across the pommel of her saddle she held her small pappoose, whose faint wailing told of his discomfort and terror.
"Wait—me take pappoose," the prisoner said, in English, with a note of command.
Curtis was deeply touched. He ordered Two Horns to halt, and Crow got out and took the babe and handed it to Cut Finger, who received it carefully in his long arms. No woman could have been tenderer.
As they drove on, a big lump rose in the soldier's throat. It seemed a treacherous and sinful thing to hand this man over to a savage throng of white men, perhaps to be lynched on the road. "I will not do it," he said; "I will take him to Pinon City myself. He shall have trial as if he were white. I will yield him to the law, but not to vengeance."
Cut Finger thereafter spoke no word, did not even look back, though Curtis detected him turning his head whenever the sound of the galloping horse grew faint or died away for a few moments. The baby ceased to wail, and on the rough ground, when the wagon jarred, the father held the little one high as in a sling.
Upon entering the camp of Crawling Elk they found all the people massed, waiting, listening, and their presence excited the prisoner greatly, and he began again to sing his death-chant, which now seemed infinitely more touching by reason of the small creature he cradled so lovingly in his arms.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis. "You must not sing. Drive fast, Two Horns!"
Answering wails and fragments of chanting broke from the women; one or two cried out, "Take him from the agent!" But the men shook their heads and sadly watched them pass. "He has done a foolish thing; he must now suffer for it," said Crawling Elk.
As they drew up before the door of the parsonage Curtis sprang out and said to Cut Finger:
"Give me the baby; he shall be well cared for."