“I will do that,” replied Cody, “and try to save you even at the eleventh hour.”
“It will be something to have my friends near me, and not be left quite alone with these demons,” moaned Hare. “Oh, my father—my poor father! It will break his heart when he hears of this, and it will break my wife’s heart, too.”
Several of the white party protested earnestly against returning with the Indians, saying that it would mean running into terrible and unnecessary danger.
There was no telling what might happen when the savages were incited to wrath by their women and by their orators, who would harangue them over the dead body of the murdered man and demand a tenfold retribution.
Buffalo Bill, however, with the aid of Captain Meinhold, persuaded the men to stay by their comrade.
It was at first proposed by the whites that Hare should remain with them on the way back to the village, but when this was attempted Running Water directed that he be put at once into one of the canoes, which movement better suited the Indians, who seemed anxious to get hold of their prisoner at once.
He was taken into the very boat which held his unfortunate victim, who was already quite dead.
Hare was made to sit down in the bottom of the craft, alongside of the corpse. The horror of his position was indescribable, and was fully expressed in his countenance, although he strove hard to maintain some degree of fortitude and manliness.
“Promise that you will shoot me, Cody, if it comes to the worst,” he said eagerly, “and not let me be tortured. For Heaven’s sake, promise me that.”
“We will do all that we can for you,” was the evasive reply; “but remember that we are all in the power of these men, and that we have to be careful not to give them further offense, for the sake of the women, if not for our own.”