“He must give the dark-hair.”
The brow of the chief contracted in an ominous frown, that threatened instant destruction to the audacious squatter; but as suddenly recollecting his policy, he craftily replied—
“A girl is too light for the hand of such a brave. I will fill it with buffaloes.”
“He says he has need of the light-hair, too; who has his blood in her veins.”
“She shall be the wife of Mahtoree; then the Long-knife will be the father of a chief.”
“And me,” continued the trapper, making one of those expressive signs, by which the natives communicate, with nearly the same facility as with their tongues, and turning to the squatter at the same time, in order that the latter might see he dealt fairly by him; “he asks for a miserable and worn-out trapper.”
The Dahcotah threw his arm over the shoulder of the old man, with an air of great affection, before he replied to this third and last demand.
“My friend is old,” he said, “and cannot travel far. He will stay with the Tetons, that they may learn wisdom from his words. What Sioux has a tongue like my father? No; let his words be very soft, but let them be very clear. Mahtoree will give skins and buffaloes. He will give the young men of the Pale-faces wives, but he cannot give away any who live in his own lodge.”
Perfectly satisfied, himself, with this laconic reply, the chief was moving towards his expecting counsellors, when suddenly returning, he interrupted the translation of the trapper by adding—
“Tell the Great Buffaloe” (a name by which the Tetons had already christened Ishmael), “that Mahtoree has a hand which is always open. See,” he added, pointing to the hard and wrinkled visage of the attentive Esther, “his wife is too old, for so great a chief. Let him put her out of his lodge. Mahtoree loves him as a brother. He is his brother. He shall have the youngest wife of the Teton. Tachechana, the pride of the Sioux girls, shall cook his venison, and many braves will look at him with longing minds. Go, a Dahcotah is generous.”