It was plain from the looks of the two Pawnees who were guarding the brave that they did not. Their fingers clutched their tomahawks with a nervous grip, as though they yearned to send the deadly weapons crashing into the skull of the captive.
The Shawnee looked up beseechingly into the face of the border king. He was evidently afraid to die, and he knew that his fate rested in the hands of the renowned Long Hair.
“White Feather will tell the great chief about the paleface maidens if he will spare his life,” he said. “He will tell how they were taken from Evil Heart and who took them.”
He spoke in his own tongue, which Buffalo Bill understood.
“That’s another matter,” replied the king of the scouts. “Let White Feather speak straight words and tell me all I want to know, and he shall not only have his life, but he shall go free. He is not a warrior we need fear.”
The Shawnee was too nervous for himself to resent or even notice the last cutting remark. He plunged into his story eagerly.
It appeared that the Shawnees had fled from the wrecked wagon train because one of their scouts had signaled the approach of a strong war party of Utes, far outnumbering their own. As the Utes, like the Apaches, had their hands against almost all the other tribes, Evil Heart had feared to meet them.
The Utes had not seen them, apparently, but they had done all they could to hide their trail, without knowing that the white men were after them.
But, nevertheless, quite by accident, the war party of Utes had sighted them later on the prairie and ridden up to them, compelling them to halt. This explained the mystery of the two converging trails.
The Utes were under the command of a famous chief named Bear Killer, and they were out on the warpath against the Snake Indians, having traveled far from their own lodges for that purpose.