“But how?”
The calm eyes twinkled as they turned upon the speaker.
“Don’t offer me any puzzles to answer,” said Boone. “I have no more notion ‘how’ than you have. But the chance will come in some way; and it will be for us to be ready to take hold of it.”
Though Boone had never been taken captive by the Indians before, he knew, from talks with those who had, and from his knowledge of savage ceremony, that in cases like their own, a certain form was always gone through before torture and death were resorted to.
“They’ll keep us,” he told Stuart, “and try to get us to come into the tribe. It’s a strange kink in their natures that though they hate the white, they seldom fail to try to make him one of them by adoption if they have the chance.”
“You think they’ll try and make Shawnees of us?”
“It’s like as not,” answered Boone.
“Before I’ll be a renegade, I’ll die,” said Stuart, stoutly.
Boone nodded.
“I don’t know as I blame you in that,” spoke he. “A renegade is as mean a critter as walks the earth. But it’d be just as well if we kept our feelings on that point from the Shawnees.”