The Indian did not answer at once. When he did, he surprised the boy.
“Mebbe me.” A soft, mocking laugh followed.
Johnny stared at him. “No,” he said at last. “No—no! He come on Reservation—he come away from Reservation. You no kill him. White man kill him.” Johnny tapped his chest. “Me, I know how”—pointing to the chief—“you know why. Traynor no fool. He watch. Man catch him when he sleep. If you not tell me his name, chief, easy me, I find out who brung you to town. Mebbe that man talk. Lots of men talk by and by. You talk now, eh?”
Thunder Bird shook his head determinedly. “No talk, me. You wait—two, t’ree day you find out.”
It was an artful answer. Johnny understood the cunning insinuation it carried. A muttered “Humph!” escaped him. “You mean, chief, that in two or three days somebody’ll find a man with a bullet hole clean through him or with a knife stuck in his back, and he’ll be the man that killed Traynor. I savvy your talk, but it don’t go. Dead men don’t talk. No talk, no good.”
“Man talk, jail catch um.”
This observation gave Johnny renewed hope. “You talk now,” he said, “law catch um man, no catch um you. No talk now, mebbe so law catch um you by and by.”
Thunder Bird was unmoved. “No,” he murmured. “Law no catch um me. Law no good for Indian—nothing no good for Indian. Piute make his own medicine.”
“Sometime Piute medicine is bad. No good all time,” Johnny argued. “I make good medicine for you, all the same you tell me.”
Thunder Bird would not unbend. Again and again Johnny tried to make him speak. The boy’s patience gave out in the end. He knew that in ten minutes the old Indian could clear up the mystery of Traynor’s death if he would. But, no; his dignity as a chief had been assailed, and Thunder Bird was going to avenge the wrong in his own way. He couldn’t have said it any plainer. And the prospective victim——Who else but old Aaron?