CHAPTER XXI
TIT FOR TAT
Yes, it was Blue Jacket, but apparently a wreck of the young Indian whom Sandy had last seen under the friendly roof of the new Armstrong cabin.
He was blackened with smoke, his buckskin garments showing holes that the forest fire had burned; the proud feather that had once adorned his scalp-lock hung low over his ear, and broken; he seemed hardly able to drag himself past the wondering squaws, and reach the centre of the triple ring of warriors.
But it was Blue Jacket, alive and in the flesh, for all that.
"Glory! he has come home just in time to save me!" Sandy kept saying to himself, as he stared. "And that terrible old medicine man was going to seal my fate! Glory! could there be any greater luck? And didn't dear old Bob say the bread we cast upon the waters might return ere many days? Yes, it has come back, principal and interest!"
Every eye was fastened upon the figure of the young brave. Not one present at the council fire but knew he had a story to tell that would thrill their souls. Even the squaws, seldom allowed to listen to the serious councils around the sacred fire, bent forward, the better not to lose a single word.
Blue Jacket began to speak. At first his manner was sedate. He was telling of how he had fought in that night battle, of the wound that had left him on the field and how he crept away, hoping to return to his lodge among his people.