“Waugh! Death Killer is a mighty chief,” said Red Knife hesitatingly.
“And this is a mighty medicine,” suggested the wily scout.
The Indian rose up suddenly and thrust the compass into the breast of his shirt. He had evidently made up his mind.
“It is well,” he said shortly. “Let Long Hair show this truth to me.”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE TRAITOR.
Buffalo Bill was too wise to take Chief too near the Indian encampment. The wise white horse could take care of himself in ordinary emergencies, but he would be rather in the way up in the mountains, and the scout left him in a well-grassed valley, while he and Red Knife went on toward the Indian village.
Chief Oak Heart had established himself in a place not easy of access by the pony soldiers, and he had a great contempt for the “walk-a-heaps.” The Sioux are great riders, seldom walking where a pony can carry them, and are contemptuous of all people who do not likewise ride.
Red Knife had left his village afoot. It was a mark of his humility and his desperate straits. The route back to the encampment was so rough that ponies would have been of little use to either the red man or the scout. They were all day in climbing the mountain and finding a pass through to the other side of the ridge. They came out about dark in sight of the valley where the village lay. Its lights were visible to them from the mountainside. They retired to a cave that Red Knife knew of, however, and built their own fire, out of sight.
Red Knife was mightily pleased with his new medicine. He was eager to get down to his people and show its virtues to them. But he had promised two things to the scout. One was to point out a secret trail down into Oak Heart’s camp; the other to spread among the braves the fact of Death Killer’s treachery—providing Cody proved to his satisfaction that the medicine chief was treacherous.