Hare turned pale and trembled very much when this decision was announced, but no argument or entreaties of his own or of his friends could produce any change or sign of wavering in the minds of the red men.
They listened attentively to all that was said, but still Running Water replied to it all in the same words, and almost in the same tone.
“Life for life,” was their law. He was very sorry for the young man, he said, but he could not protect him, if he would, from those who had a right to demand his blood—the relations of the slain man.
“Pray don’t give me up, gentlemen,” exclaimed Hare. “They will burn me at the stake. They will torture me for a whole day.”
“We can’t possibly save you, Hare,” replied the captain. “We have no weapons excepting three small pistols, and here are twenty-six armed men.”
“Don’t give me up!”
“We certainly shall not give you up,” said Buffalo Bill; “but we can’t prevent them from taking you. The best that I can advise you to do, is to meet your fate like a man. As to their torturing you, I don’t believe they will do it.
“Even as it is, we might fight for you if it were not for the women. If we make a fight, they will be killed—or, worse still, made prisoners and forced to live all their lives as the squaws of brutal savages.
“I will speak to the Indians about the torturing, and beg them to let you off it; or, rather, if our friends agree, we will all return with you to their village, and see if anything further can be done for you.”
“Thank you a thousand times, Cody. Yes, stay by me to the last.”