“Then I know that my father will go to my people. His head is grey, and his words will not be blown away with the smoke. Let him get on my lodge, and call the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No Pawnee will be deaf. Then let my father ask for the colt, that has never been ridden, but which is sleeker than the buck, and swifter than the elk.”
“I understand you, boy, I understand you,” interrupted the attentive old man; “and what you say shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I’m but little skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian.”
“And when my young men have given my father the halter of that colt, he will lead him by a crooked path to the grave of Hard-Heart?”
“Will I! ay, that I will, brave youth, though the winter covers these plains in banks of snow, and the sun is hidden as much by day as by night. To the head of the holy spot will I lead the beast, and place him with his eyes looking towards the setting sun.”
“And my father will speak to him, and tell him, that the master, who has fed him since he was foaled, has now need of him.”
“That, too, will I do; though the Lord he knows that I shall hold discourse with a horse, not with any vain conceit that my words will be understood, but only to satisfy the cravings of Indian superstition. Hector, my pup, what think you, dog, of talking to a horse?”
“Let the grey-beard speak to him with the tongue of a Pawnee,” interrupted the young victim, perceiving that his companion had used an unknown language for the preceding speech.
“My son’s will shall be done. And with these old hands, which I had hoped had nearly done with bloodshed, whether it be of man or beast, will I slay the animal on your grave!”
“It is good,” returned the other, a gleam of satisfaction flitting across his features. “Hard-Heart will ride his horse to the blessed prairies, and he will come before the Master of Life like a chief!”
The sudden and striking change, which instantly occurred in the countenance of the Indian, caused the trapper to look aside, when he perceived that the conference of the Siouxes had ended, and that Mahtoree, attended by one or two of the principal warriors, was deliberately approaching his intended victim.