“I’ll do it, if it costs me every brave in my tribe,” replied Black Bear, excited at the liberal reward of his friend.
“And there is another thing, Brandon,” said the robber-chief; “I was thinking that, if you were one of my band, as well as an Indian chief, we could throw our forces together and work to a better advantage.”
“And I’ve been thinkin’ that I would like to join your order if it wasn’t for your confounded initiatory ceremony.”
“I’ll admit it does make a fellow a little shaky in the joints,” said Dungarvon; “but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will meet me to-morrow noon at the Lone Pine, I’ll give a synopsis of the ‘ceremony,’ that you will not be unnerved in case you will join us.”
“I’ll do it!” returned the renegade, emphatically; “to-morrow noon at Lone Pine, and I’ll expect you to tell me the truth in regard to the ‘ceremony,’ for a nice story it would be to get out, that Black Bear, the great Cheyenne chief, had shown the white feather at a ceremony!”
“Ha! ha! ha! Brandon,” laughed Dungarvon; “you are naturally weak in the joints, but let it be understood—to-morrow noon, at Lone Pine.”
“I will not fail you, rest assured,” said Black Bear.
Dungarvon mounted a horse which he had hitched near, and soon he was thundering away over the stony hills, back to his den.
Black Bear turned and glided away through the woods toward his village, and as he did so, a figure—the figure of a tall man with long, yellow, disheveled hair streaming behind, and carrying a heavy club, crept from the bushes within five feet of where the villains had held their interview, and stole with the silence of a phantom after the chief, his huge club upraised to beat him down.
It was Solomon Strange, the madman.