"Yes, for the Sioux are to take the war-trail and kill, and the Snow Flower will be safe among the people of Red Hatchet. Blood has flowed over on Wounded Knee, and there are Sioux warriors, women and children to be avenged. The white soldiers of the Great Father shall be swept off the earth, and the homes of the pale-faces will be destroyed, their women and children killed, as their men killed ours. With my people the Snow Flower will be safe. She must go."
Jennie listened in dire alarm, and yet her nerve did not leave her.
She knew that she was powerless to resist, and if she went willingly, or rather apparently so, she would have a chance of escape, while if she went as a captive, she would not have.
So she forced a smile to her face, and said:
"The Red Hatchet is the friend of Snow Flower, and she will go with him, for with his people she knows she will be safe; but he must protect her people, and do them no harm."
"The White Gold chief is safe with the Sioux, he and his squaw and the young warrior. The Snow Flower will be safe with the people of the Red Hatchet. She will come."
As she could do nothing else, Jennie rode alongside of the Sioux chief, and the band at once started upon the retreat for the Bad Lands, going by the upper trail, while the wicked young settler, from his hiding-place, saw them ride off with their captive, and muttered to himself with malicious glee:
"Now she is safe for awhile, and when I go for her she will gladly come to my terms."
As he felt his dangerous position, now within a country where he might dash upon a party of cavalry, Red Hatchet moved rapidly along the trail he had decided to return by to reach the Bad Lands with all dispatch.