“My dear young lady, don’t trust this rascally lieutenant a minute, nor believe anything he says; he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and these Cheyennes hit his character right when they call him the Wolf Soldier.”
A cry of rage broke from Barlow.
“Hickok,” he shouted, “you lie; you lie like a dog!”
The hot blood reddened the face of the bound man.
“You’ll have a chance to take that back, if these red gentlemen don’t make short work of me,” he said. “Never does any man tell me to my teeth that I’m a liar, and afterward live to brag about it. He’ll meet me with pistols in hand, and one or the other of us will turn up his toes to the daisies. You’ve heard of Wild Bill.”
Barlow’s face paled. Wild Bill, the dead shot of the West, did have rather an unenviable reputation as a dead shot and a duelist; and it was said that he was quick to resent an insult, and would fight to the death at the drop of a hat. His black, sparkling eyes glittered now in a way to make Barlow quail. Yet Barlow reflected that this Western dead shot was a prisoner of the Cheyennes now, and that the chances of his getting away and avenging the insult were very slim.
Barlow could afford to smile at the impotent rage of Wild Bill at that time.
“You’ve heard what I said, Miss Arlington,” Wild Bill shouted again. “This wolf soldier is a traitor. He has turned renegade and joined the Indians. Believe nothing he says. But look out for yourself. I may go under, as he has it in for me, and these red fiends hate me worse than the devil hates holy water. So my chances are not good. But I want you to know the truth, if I’m to go under, that you may look out for yourself as well as you can.”
With a snarling curse Barlow rode closer and seemed about to strike him, when Red Wing broke through, and with the flat of his tomahawk smashed the redoubtable and courageous scout in the face. The blow was not delivered with force enough to be bone-breaking, but it made a red outline of the tomahawk blade on the bruised flesh.
“White man keep tongue still or me cut it out!” Red Wing shouted.