The savage did not yield himself up without resistance. Resistance with an Indian is instinctive, as with a wild animal. He flung himself from his horse, and drawing his knife, with a single cut severed the thong that bound him.
In another instant, he would have been off among the bushes; but before he could move from the spot, half-a-dozen strong arms were around him; and in spite of his struggles, and the dangerous thrusts of his long Spanish knife, he was “choked” down and held fast.
My followers were for making short work with him. More than one had bared their blades to finish him upon the spot, and would have done so, had I not interfered. I was averse to spilling his blood; and by my intercession, his life was spared.
To prevent him from giving us further trouble, however, we tied him to a tree in such a manner that he could not possibly free himself.
The mode of securing him was suggested by Stanfield, the backwoodsman: it was simple and safe. A tree was chosen, whose trunk was large enough to fill the embrace of the Indian, so that the ends of his fingers just met when his arms were drawn to their full stretch around it. Upon his wrists, thongs of raw hide were firmly looped, and then knotted together. His ankles were also bound by similar cords—the ends of which were staked, so as to hinder him from worming around the tree, and perchance wearing off his thongs, or chafing them, so that they might break.
The ligature was perfect; the most expert jail-breaker could not have freed himself from such a fastening.
It was our intention to leave him thus, and perhaps set him free upon our return, if we should return by that way—a doubtful hypothesis.
I thought not at the time of the cruelty we were committing. We had spared the Indian’s life—a mercy at the moment—and I was too much concerned about the future of others, to waste reflection on his.
We had taken the precaution to leave him at some distance from the place of his capture; others of his party might come after, and discover him, soon enough to interfere with our plans. His prison had been chosen far off in the depth of the woods; even his shouts could not have been heard by any one passing along the trail.
He was not to be left entirely alone: a horse was to be his companion—not his own—for one of the rangers had fancied an exchange. Stanfield—not well mounted—had proposed a “swop,” as he jocosely termed it, to which the savage had no alternative but consent; and the Kentuckian, having “hitched” his worn-out nag to a tree, led off the skew-bald mustang in triumph, declaring that he was now “squar wi’ the Indyens.” Stanfield would have liked it better had the “swop” been made with the renegade who had robbed him.