"No. Snowdrop need not fear! White Wolf already loves her and will make her his wife, for she is more beautiful than any woman of the Pawnee tribe!"
"But Snowdrop loves another, and can not go to the lodge of White Wolf, though he is a great brave and all the tribes fear him."
"White Wolf is in no hurry, and Snowdrop will learn to love him. We will wait till we get to the village of the Pawnees, and then when White Wolf asks her to be his wife she will say yes!"
"No, she will not; but if White Wolf loves Snowdrop, as he says he does, then let him go and rescue her father from the hands of the Sioux, for if he should die, then Snowdrop will die, too!"
"White Wolf will rescue Gray Eagle. Will Snowdrop tell him where her father is?"
"In the forest beyond the big hills which I left when the sun rose."
"White Wolf will go there, and he will take Gray Eagle from the cowardly Sioux, and when Snowdrop sees her father safe, then she will consent to be the wife of the Pawnee chief."
Snowdrop did not promise that she would, neither did she say that she would not; nor yet did she dare to tell him that the two scouts were doing what he was trying to do.
She acted wisely and kept silence, which White Wolf construed in his favor, and he said:
"We will go to our camp to the south, where I have a good place to leave Snowdrop in safety, then White Wolf will go on the trail of the Sioux. He will find them, and will bring the father of Snowdrop away with him!"