“As a fine fellow, just as he did you.”
“Yet you will betray him to his death; how does that hang together?”
“To his death! I? That’s impossible for my father’s son.”
“But you’ll make him a prisoner of these villains, and that means death.”
“Don’t believe that fairy tale. On the contrary, I’d do a good deal to save Winnetou if he were in danger.”
“Then why do you set this trap? And listen, Sam. If he is captured, I’ll free him; and if a weapon is turned on him, I’ll stand by his side and fight for him. I warn you of this frankly. I promised a dying man to be his friend, and that is as binding to me as an oath.”
“I like that, I like that,” Sam announced. “We agree there.”
“Oh, yes,” I exclaimed impatiently, “you say so, but how do your good words agree with your actions?”
“So that is what you want to know, hey? Old Sam Hawkins suspected you wanted to speak to him, but he dared not let you. He’s a different fellow than he seems, only he’s not going to show his cards to any one but you and Dick Stone and Will Parker, who are to help in his plot. We were lucky to have met the Kiowas and learned all we know now, and I really don’t see any other way of saving ourselves from the Apaches. However much you may admire Winnetou, you’d have to love him in eternity, for, being ignorant of your devotion to him, he’d send you there in short order. Now the Kiowas will come here with their two hundred braves—”
“I’ll warn Winnetou,” I interrupted.