“Whitewing,” said he, drawing himself up with flashing eyes and extended hand in the course of the debate, “surely you do not tell me that the Book teaches us to allow our enemies to raid in our lands, to carry off our women and little ones, and to burn our wigwams, while we sit still and wait till they are pleased to take our scalps?”
Having put this rather startling question, he subsided as promptly as he had burst forth.
“That’s a poser!” thought the irreverent Little Tim, who sympathised with Bounding Bull, but he said nothing.
“My brother has been well named,” replied the uncompromising Whitewing; “he not only bounds upon his foes, but lets his mind bound to foolish conclusions. The Book teaches peace—if possible. If it be not possible, then we cannot avoid war. But how can we know what is possible unless we try? My brother advises that we should go on the war-path at once, and drive the Blackfeet away. Has Bounding Bull tried his best to bring them to reason? has he failed? Does he know that peace is impossible?”
“Now look here, Whitewing,” broke in Little Tim at this point. “It’s all very well for you to talk about peace an’ what’s possible. I’m a Christian man myself, an’ there’s nobody as would be better pleased than me to see all the redskins in the mountains an’ on the prairies at peace wi’ one another. But you won’t get me to believe that a few soft words are goin’ to make Rushin’ River all straight. He’s the sworn enemy o’ Boundin’ Bull. Hates him like pison. He hates me like brimstone, an’ it’s my opinion that if we don’t make away wi’ him he’ll make away wi’ us.”
Whitewing—who was fond of silencing his opponents by quoting Scripture, many passages of which he had learned by heart long ago from his friend the preacher—did not reply for a few seconds. Then, looking earnestly at his brother chief, he said—
“With Manitou all things are possible. A soft answer turns away wrath.”
Bounding Bull pondered the words. Little Tim gave vent to a doubtful “humph”—not that he doubted the truth of the Word, but that he doubted its applicability on the present occasion.
It was finally agreed that the question should not be decided until the whole council had returned to Tim’s Folly, and laid the matter before the wounded missionary.
Then Little Tim, being freed from the cares of state, went to solace himself with domesticity.