"No, she must return with me to her home, for my father, Eagle-that-Kills, has sent me for the Snow Flower."
"The Snow Flower is in the medicine tepee, and when she leaves there it will be as the adopted daughter of the Sioux. She cannot go with the White Hawk," was the rejoinder of the Red Hatchet.
Herbert Bernard crushed an oath between his teeth, and had he not counted the result would have sprang upon the Indian chief then and there.
But instead he said:
"Is the Red Hatchet no longer the friend of the Eagle-that-Kills, and of the White Hawk, that he acts like a foe and steals from them the Snow Flower whom they love so dearly?"
"The Red Hatchet did not steal the Snow Flower, for the White Hawk told him to bring her here, and she came without force, for she loves the Sioux, and her heart is given to Red Hatchet!"
The right hand of Herbert Bernard dropped upon a revolver, but he wisely did not draw it.
He was wholly in the power of the Red Hatchet, and he felt anxious at his position even among those who were his friends, for toward the Bernards the Sioux had certainly shown no enmity.
"Will the Red Hatchet let the White Hawk see the Snow Flower?" he asked.