“You bet it will,” said Carl mentally. “While you are waiting for your letter from General Miles, I will be looking out for an opportunity to escape.”
The squawman went to one side of the tepee, and after removing the iron kettle which contained what was left of the breakfast and kicking aside a few old pots and pans, he finally drew out a buffalo bag that contained one thing that he prized above everything else upon earth. In a few minutes he drew out the ghost shirt, and held it up so that Carl could have a fair view of it. The garment was made of a light buckskin, sewed with deer sinew, and cut in the form of all the Indians’ hunting-shirts. The outside of it was ornamented with rude pictures representing buffalo, deer and ravens, who seemed to be in full flight.
“Now, when we get this on, the white man’s rifle won’t amount to a row of pins,” said the squawman. “The weapon will refuse to fire, or the bullet in it will be turned aside and drop to the ground.”
“Who told you all this?” asked Carl.
“The medicine man; and he is the one that prayed to the Messiah while they were on their way home, and he set them miles ahead on their journey.”
Carl did not say anything, but his thoughts were busy. What a pity it was, he thought, that Ainsworth and Tuttle did not have on those ghost shirts when General Miles’ force came up with them.
“You see it is sewed with sinew,” said the squawman, “and that proves that we must not take anything into the dance that the white man has made. We can wear anything that we have made ourselves, but nothing else.”
“Do you think you are going to whip the white man?”
“Not unless we have to.”
“And when you do whip him,” continued Carl, “you will have to use the weapons he made for you, will you not?”