“If the boy is Squatting Bear's friend, why does he tie his legs to the mule?”
These words, which fell upon Gopher Gid's ears, sent a thrill through every fibre, and the glance which the chief gave him made him for a moment wish to throw himself into the tawny arms, and find protection on the Sioux's breast.
But the next instant the crowd suddenly surged against the animal which the boy bestrode, and he felt the pressure of fingers on his thigh.
“So the old fellow caught you?” whispered a thrilling voice at that immortal moment. “Keep up your courage! we're all here—in the very jaws of death!”
We have said that the Sioux village contained about a thousand lodges. This is a fair estimate; they were arranged in a rude circle, and faced the square, whose four corners were marked by the lodges of the principal chiefs, Red Cloud, Tiger Tail, Setting Sun, and Hungry Wolf.
Standing in one of the stoutly-built birchen habitations, with her face pressed against a crevice, through which came the light of the distant stars, and the hubbub without, was a young Indian girl.
She was clad in half-civilised garments; her beautiful hair hung in wavy splendour down her back, and her feet, small and shapely, were encased in moccasins which had never been made for them—they fitted loosely, and in no graceful manner.
“Hush, Weeping Leaf!” said a voice so near the girl that she started back into the gloom of the lodge with a light cry of terror.
“Weeping Leaf!” she echoed; “I am not an Indian. They dyed my skin while I was raving mad; and to completely make me like them, red and barbarous, they have named me Weeping Leaf. Do I regret that I have come to such a fate? No! I came to this country on a good mission—to find my brother, cursed by a father, and driven from home to become a vagabond, they say, between Omaha and the coast. Father, who retired on half-pay, and proud of faithful service, is soon to go beyond the scene of his one great grief. I told him that I would bring Jack back for forgiveness; but he groaned, and, hiding his face in his hands, cried that Jack was dead.”
“But I know better,” she continued, with trustful emphasis. “He is not dead. I am here a captive, not only painted and dressed like an Indian girl, but called by an outlandish savage name. They shall not always keep me thus; I will find that brother. I will pay the red fiends back for the attack they made on our wagon. They have warmed a viper in Dora Lightway—one whose aims are to find her banned brother, and to deal them blows of death. I did not know that that captor of mine was so near, and still I might have known that I would not be left unguarded. Ay, stars, look down and see that I am not an Indian, because my skin is red—look down and hear the vows of vengeance which well from my heart every minute of my captivity!”