“Yes, but am I to be molested? Am I to lie down at night knowing that to me, personally, at least, the Delawares are friends, or am I to watch lest as enemies they come to kill me?” Ree demanded.
“The Paleface brother gives himself not as a hostage. He has rejected the offer made him,” Captain Pipe answered.
“I want only time to think about that,” said Ree. “I will answer later.”
The council was over but the Indians all remained silent, listening attentively to everything which was said. Inquiringly now they looked to their chief to know the white boy’s fate. Most of them felt friendly toward him. But at the same time all, or nearly all, were growing daily more hostile to the whites in general.
“The White Fox may go. He is free and no Indian will disturb him; but he must come no more to the village of the Delawares if he comes not as a hostage. He must remain near his own lodge and if he goes from his own land he must go not far. He must carry no tales of what the Indians are doing to the forts or to the houses of the Paleface people. On the land that the Delawares sold to him the Paleface brother shall be as safe as the eagle in its nest upon the mountain tops.”
“No other place, though,” Lone-Elk grunted savagely and only half audibly.
Whether Captain Pipe heard him Ree did not know, for as the latter had ceased speaking he had dismissed the council with a wave of his hand, and now all the Indians were moving toward the open air, some quiet and thoughtful, some talking, some pushing and hurrying, some inclined to linger.
Gentle Maiden was among the latter. She passed very near Ree as she moved slowly out and, unobserved by any save himself, gave the lad a glance which was most friendly, the only really friendly look he had received except from Fishing Bird.
With an effort Kingdom suppressed a tear of bitterness and disappointment which, somehow, the friendly look from the Indian girl had brought to his eyes. He waited only until he could reach Captain Pipe and shake his hand to show the appreciation and respect which he felt were really due the chief, sadly misled by Lone-Elk though the proud Delaware was. Ree could not but notice Hopocon performed the friendly ceremony of shaking hands with far less of cordial warmth than usual.
“So much,” he thought, “for the fact that Captain Pipe needs lead and that the Seneca knows where lead is.”