"Hoopla!" said one who seemed to have a little smattering of English. "Nice time the squaws have to-night. Take um scalp and burn um."
These words aroused Guy and he sat up on the ground. He thought of Winged Arrow's medicine, and put his hand into his pocket to see if he could find it; but the Indians, believing that he was looking for a weapon, rushed upon him and stretched him again upon the earth, while one drew his scalping knife and yelled as if he were going to use it. He seized Guy by the hair and passed his knife around it, and when he arose to his feet he had a handful of it, which he shook in the boy's face. Guy's heart seemed to stop beating. Were his captors going to scalp him alive? He put his hand to his head and found, greatly to his relief, that although his hair was gone, his skin was there as usual. A roar of laughter was the result, and when it was ended one of the braves said:—
"Brave boy. To-night stake him out on ground. Then take scalp sure enough."
It was something to know that they were going to take him to the village before they began torturing him, and Guy at once became more at his ease and began to look around among his captors to see if Winged Arrow was there. He did not see him, and he concluded that he would let his letter go until he could see him or find some means to send it to him. What was the reason he had not asked him his name in Indian when he met him there on the plains? That would have reached him sure, and he resolved to try it in English. Perhaps the Indians knew enough of that tongue to recognize it. The Sioux were sitting down in a circle and some of them were getting out their pipes to indulge in a smoke.
"Do any of you know English?" he asked at a venture.
"Oh, yes, me know it," said one of the Indians, tapping his breast with his hand. "Me know English a heap."
"Then perhaps you know Winged Arrow," said Guy. "He is my friend."
Guy did not see what there was in this to excite the laughter of the Indians, but it raised it sure enough, and his captors began passing some remarks about him in their native tongue which made them laugh louder than ever. Guy gave it up in despair, and settled back on the ground again. The Indians either could not or would not understand what he was trying to get at, and it was useless to try them further. His mind was so busy with his own affairs that he had not thought to see if there were other prisoners in the party, but now he found that there were two—one a member of his own company, who had evidently been worse treated than Guy was, for he lay upon the ground as motionless as if he were dead. Guy got up and went to him. He could not bear to see one of his own kind used as bad as he was without saying something to him.
"Oh, sir, we are gone up now," said the soldier, in a faint voice. "My back is broken."
"I guess I know about how you feel, for my back is feeling the same way," replied Guy. "Brace up, and never say die. When we get to their village, I will see what I can do toward effecting our release."