"I believe they're going to do it!" Sandy whispered to himself, when he saw how still more threatening looks were cast upon him.
Then came the medicine man, dressed in most fantastic garb, and wearing a head of a bear, that had attached to it the horns of a buffalo. Into the circle he danced, waving his hands, and crooning some weird song that seemed to hold his hearers entranced, though to Sandy it sounded like the worst gibberish he had ever heard.
But soon he, too, was following the movements of the old charmer with deepest anxiety; for it became impressed upon his mind that, after all, much depended on what he might decide. The medicine man was believed to be in direct communication with the Great Spirit, and could, after certain incantations, learn what the will of the Manitou might be.
If he said that the prisoner must be burned, nothing could save Sandy. On the contrary, should the medicine man declare that the voice of Manitou declared that some other fate be meted out to the paleface captive, his word was law.
Just then Sandy had his attention called to a movement in another quarter.
"Oh! there is the old squaw who hugged me!" he exclaimed, almost holding his breath in suspense; "and she seems to be wanting to jump forward when the right time comes. All may not be lost. Perhaps I could never love her; but I'd be grateful if she saved my life!"
Once the boy had been seized with a sudden hope, and had eagerly scanned each and every face in all that triple circle.
"No, he is not here," he muttered in a disappointed tone; "perhaps he never got back home. Perhaps his wound broke out again, and he fell by the way! Such hard luck!"
He was thinking of Blue Jacket, the young brave whom he and Bob had nursed back from the border of the grave. But Blue Jacket was certainly not there; or, if so, realizing his inability to help his young white friend, he kept his face hidden in his blanket of buffalo skin.