Again the chief translated to his braves, and again came the grunts and ejaculations. But in spite of the threatening looks and the tightening of the savage circle, the backwoodsman proceeded fearlessly.
“If any one hunts in this region without right, it is the red man,” declared he. “The whole of the country below the great river belongs to the white face. Many moons ago, at the great council at Fort Stanwix, the league of the Iroquois turned over this land to the colonists. Does the red brother deny this? Does he not mean to keep faith?”
What Boone said was true, and the Shawnee knew it, but in the southern tribes the right of the league to cede the territory had always been denied. So the chief regarded Boone with fierce-eyed anger.
“The white face is as cunning as the snake,” said he, “and his tongue is as crooked.”
Then turning away from them he gave a signal; the band at once started off, the two captives in their midst, guarded by a half dozen lean, hawk-like braves. Some miles away among the hills was the Shawnee camp, a dozen or more deerskin lodges erected in a sheltered place. Fires were burning outside the tepees; several young men were cooking strips of meat upon pointed sticks.
The whites were bound to heavy stakes driven firmly into the ground; then the band gathered about the fires, and when the meat was cooked began to eat it in silence.
“Well,” said Stuart, who had said very little since their capture, “it has a bad look.”
“It might be worse,” replied Boone, coolly, his calm eyes studying the Shawnees at the camp-fires. “There is a good chance for us yet.”
“To escape?”
Boone nodded.