“It is true.”
“No; by the laws of the West a prisoner belongs to his captor. Take the Apaches you captured, but those we captured belong to us.”
“Uff! uff! how wise you speak! So you want to keep Intschu-Tschuna and Winnetou. But what if I won’t allow it?”
“You will allow it.”
He spoke angrily, but I answered him gently, though firmly. He drew his knife, thrust it into the earth up to the handle, and said with flashing eyes: “If you lay a hand on a single Apache your body shall be like this earth in which my knife stands. I have spoken. How!”
This was said in deadly earnest; but I would have shown him that I was not afraid of him if Sam Hawkins had not given me a warning glance which kept me silent.
The captive Apaches lay around the fire, and it would have been easier to leave them there where they could be watched with no trouble, but Tangua wanted to show me they were really his property to do with as he pleased, and ordered them tied to the trees near by. This was done, and none too tenderly, the two chiefs being treated most roughly, and their fetters drawn so tight as to make the blood burst from the swollen flesh. It was absolutely impossible for a prisoner to break away and escape unaided, and Tangua set guards around the camp to prevent rescue.
Our second fire burned in the same place as the first one, and we sat around it alone, the Kiowas being as anxious to stay by themselves as we were to have them do so. They had not shown themselves friendly towards us from the first, and my late encounter with their chief was not calculated to make them more so. The looks of hatred which they cast upon us did not invite to confidence, and we felt that we might be glad if we escaped with no further clash with them. They considered themselves the lords of the situation, and regarded us as the big lion in the menagerie regards the little dog he tolerates near him.
Sam, Dick, Will, and I were thinking about the execution of our plan to free the chiefs, which was made the more difficult in so far that only we could share in it. We dared not let our comrades into our secret, for they would certainly oppose it, if not betray it to the Kiowas.
We sat together a long time, how long I could not tell, for I had not yet learned to tell time by the position of the stars, but it must have been till a little past midnight. Our companions slept, our fire had burned low, and all the Kiowas’ fires were out but one. Sam whispered to me: “All four of us cannot undertake this; two only are necessary.”