“Big Buffalo is found dead,” said Lone-Elk to Captain Pipe.
A look and significant shrug of the shoulders was the only answer.
“If one dies when a festival is prepared, the custom is to put the body by,—to say to the sorrowful, ‘We will mourn with you another time; join in the feasting with us till the festival is over.’ It is an old, old custom,” Lone-Elk said. “When the festival is over, also, it may be asked, ‘How did Big Buffalo die?’”
“The custom is to kill him who kills another without the right of war and not in fair fight. It is a good custom,” Captain Pipe made answer and looked at the Seneca searchingly.
“Lone-Elk did not kill Big Buffalo,” the younger Indian said in answer to the chief’s questioning look, and his voice was icy cold.
“If Lone-Elk did not kill Big Buffalo,” Captain Pipe returned in the same manner, slowly and sternly, “then shall Lone-Elk find him that did kill Big Buffalo. Let him come not back until he has done this. The Delawares have no fear of any living creature; but no Delaware kills one of his own people. With the Senecas it is not always so.”
For a moment Lone-Elk’s sharp eyes scrutinized the chief’s face as if he would find a double meaning in the Delaware’s closing sentence. Could it be that Captain Pipe knew his whole history—knew the reason he returned no more to his own nation? But quickly he answered the older Indian’s scathing words, and his voice was harsh and bitter as he said:
“Does Captain Pipe think, then, that because Big Buffalo, like a whipped dog, slunk away and would not appear in the Festival of the Harvest, the mind of Lone-Elk was poisoned against him? In his own breast does Captain Pipe find lodgment for the thought that so petty a thing could turn a Seneca to anger? No! Hear me! Lone-Elk but smiled at the childishness of Big Buffalo.”
“Let Lone-Elk show the Delawares how Big Buffalo died,” the chief haughtily answered, and his tones were a challenge. Even as he spoke, too, he turned his back to the Seneca and the latter, clenching his teeth to suppress the angry words he thought, wheeled about and left the lodge.
As Lone-Elk walked quickly to his own lodge he plainly noticed that not a friendly eye was turned toward him. His own glances the Delawares evaded by looking the other way, but he knew full well that they turned to gaze after him when he had passed, and he felt the things they were saying of him. It was a desperate situation. The charge of murder might quickly be followed by the charge of witchcraft, and that could mean only a choice between flight and death.