Hare made some reply, but his custodians hurried him along and Cody could not hear it. The crowd which now enveloped the prisoner prevented the white men from getting near him.
Black Panther was hurrying to and fro like a field officer on parade day, except that he was on foot; and if he came near the white men he gave them no opportunity to address him, but plainly showed by his manner toward them that he considered their presence there an impertinence and an intrusion.
“He feels mighty big,” said Congo angrily. “I should just like to have him alone a little while out in a field dere, widout any weapons ’cept our fists. I’d give him such a drubbin’ dat he’d squeal like a dog cotched under a wagon wheel.”
“Come, Cody,” said the captain, who saw the painfully anxious look of the king of the scouts. “It is plain that nothing more can be done. We must think of the women before everything. It will never do to turn the vengeance of these savages against the whole lot of us.”
“Don’t let us stay and see the man butchered,” said another of the party.
“So say I,” agreed another. “We have stayed here too long for the safety of the women already.”
The other men concurred, except Buffalo Bill.
“Go, my friends, if you consider it your duty,” he said. “There are the boats—take them and go. I shall certainly stay. I promised this poor man to stay by him to the last, and I shall do it. We cannot tell what chance may turn up, even at this eleventh hour. I do not think he has many minutes of life left, but still there may be an opportunity of saving him.”
Captain Meinhold hesitated, but, as it now became evident that the lines were complete and the race about to begin, curiosity detained him. Indeed, that same feeling—morbid, though not unnatural—induced the whole party to press closer to the course to get a better view.
The crowd had broken away from the starting end of the line; some of the squaws and larger boys having taken their places in the ranks, clubs in hand, and others being scattered along the route, where they could better see its whole extent.