“Go as a trader, carrying white wampum. Go to make peace with the Shawnees,” slowly replied Dale, his eyes burning with the fire of fanaticism.
“Not hankering for slow fires, nor to have squaws heap coals on my head, I must refuse,” I retorted. “But I’ll go with you or any man, as a scout.”
“In your blood, too,” he jeered. “I didn’t suppose you’d been out here long enough to lose your head.”
“I’d certainly lose it if the Shawnees got me,” I good-naturedly retorted. My poor jest brought a rumble of laughter from the men and added to Dale’s resentment, which I greatly regretted.
John Ward glided to my side and said:
“You talk like a child. I have been long among the Indians. They did not take my head.”
I didn’t like the fellow. There was something of the snake in his way of stealthily approaching. I could not get it out of my head that he must be half-red. Had he been all Indian, I might have found something in him to fancy; for there were red men whom I had liked and had respected immensely. But Ward impressed me as being neither white nor red. He stirred my bile. Without thinking much, I shot back at him:
“Perhaps they did something worse to you than to take your head. Are you sure they didn’t take your heart?”
He turned on his heel and stalked away. Dale snarled:
“You’re worse than Hughes and those other fools. You even hate a poor white man who has been held prisoner by the Indians. He comes back to his people and you welcome him by telling him he’s a renegade. Shame on you!”