At last, after a young war chief had denounced him as a lying traitor, Kennelly took the pipe from between his lips and broke silence for the first time.
“Listen, my brothers, and pay heed to my words, for I do not speak with a false tongue,” he said. “I told you that it would not be easy to take the fort, and that you must be willing to lose many braves in the attempt.
“I told you that Long Hair, the slayer of many buffaloes, was there, and you know well that he is worth a hundred men in himself. Yet you persisted in making the attempt, and you have no right to blame me for the failure.
“Did I hang back in the charge? Did I not lead your young men up to the walls of the fort? If they had followed me, we would have got inside and taken the scalps of all the men there.
“It was not my fault that they reeled back and would not follow me when the big firing began. How was I to know that your warriors are nothing but women and babes?”
At this gross insult half a dozen of the chiefs sprang to their feet and menaced the renegade with the tomahawks which they drew from their belts.
But the Irishman, in spite of his villainy, was a brave man. He merely gazed at them contemptuously, without deigning to draw his gun, and went on:
“You think that you have a quarrel with me. Very well. Name your champion, and I will meet him in single combat before you all.
“If he overcomes me, he may take my scalp; but if I slay him there must be no more disputing of my orders. My brothers, the Sioux, chose me for their war chief in this fight, and I will be obeyed.”
The young chief who had denounced Kennelly most hotly eagerly accepted this challenge, and begged his red comrades to let him act as their champion.