After the wrestling was over, some other games were indulged in, and then the circle around the camp fire broke up.
Cody and his two comrades were conducted by Red Cloud to his own tepee, which was the best in the village. He begged them to use it for the night, saying that he would sleep in the medicine lodge with Silver Fox, the venerable medicine man of the tribe.
As the chief turned to leave his white friends, after bidding them good night, he did not notice that a figure was watching him from the shadow cast by an adjoining wigwam.
The figure was that of Leaping Dog. He had caught the last words uttered by the chief.
He had sharpened the knife until its edge was as keen as that of a razor, and now he thirsted to plunge it deep into the hearts of his enemies.
But he knew he must be cautious. He must stab them when they were asleep. If he were discovered in his crime, his life would not be worth a moment’s purchase.
Even when the bodies were found it would go hard with him, though there might be no actual evidence that he was the guilty party. His fellow braves would at once suspect him, and they were likely enough to kill him on suspicion—for he knew that most of them disliked him strongly.
Lurking in the shadows, he wondered whom he should attack first—the whites or his own chief. Red Cloud had disgraced him before his own people, and his savage heart burned with rage at the thought. But the old white man had beaten him at wrestling, and made him a laughingstock before them all.
He must carry out his revenge quickly, and put a long distance between himself and the village before the dawn. He would have to travel fast and far, for the avengers of blood would follow on his trail as soon as the dead bodies were discovered.