At this Red Knife showed that he was surprised.
“This is bad. This is not known to Oak Heart. Is it so, Long Hair?”
“The Sioux know that Long Hair is not two-tongued,” declared Cody. “This is so. I suspected it, and I have found them watching. Is not Death Killer much from the camp?”
“He is.”
“He goes from watcher to watcher to see that all are in their places. If Long Hair goes straight to the camp of Oak Heart, he will be killed.”
Red Knife shrugged his shoulders and fell silent. Cody saw that, although the young brave considered it none of his business—it was a fight between Long Hair and Death Killer—he did not approve of the latter’s methods. And the scout was convinced, too, that the bulk of the Indians—and Oak Heart himself—knew naught of the trick to which Boyd Bennett had resorted.
Cody had not been foolish enough to ride straight toward Oak Heart’s village when he rode away from the spot where the Mad Hunter had been killed. He had seen in Boyd Bennett’s face, when he had gone free under his promise to the chief’s daughter, that the scoundrel would do all in his power to keep the scout from fulfilling his agreement. Although in going to the Indian village Cody would be taking his life in his hand, still by not appearing there he would lose honor among the reds themselves.
It would be said among the Utah Sioux, and from them spread to the Utes, Arapahoes, and others, that Pa-e-has-ka was afraid to keep his promise. And from the time he first journeyed across the plains Buffalo Bill had kept his agreements in every particular with the red man, friend or foe alike. He was one of the few white men “without guile.” He said what he meant, and meant what he said, and he was considered single-tongued by all, though he was up to every craftiness that his enemies might try upon him.
Cody now wished to undermine the popularity of Boyd Bennett among Oak Heart’s braves. Even if he got through the medicine chief’s guards and reached the council-lodge of the Sioux, he would have to face the influence of the renegade, and that might overcome him to the extent of his life’s sacrifice. The scout was not the man to go blindly into a trap.
Death Killer, as he called himself, was playing the traitor. Cody wished to convince Red Knife of this fact and send him back to the encampment to spread the tale against Death Killer. To this end he used the cunning which he had long cultivated in his association with the redskins.