“Swear!” cried Oagla, in thunder tones, “swear, warriors, that in the village of your people, you will never speak the name of Omaha’s slayer! Swear that you will never breathe it to the old warriors.”
In the ghastly moonlight, and by the name of their Great Spirit, the Indians swore.
“It is well,” said Oagla. “The little talker is gone. Warriors, to your lodges!”
Then, biting his lips with disappointment, he threw himself before his braves and turned his face toward the south.
The ring had fallen into the hands of one entirely unlooked for!
CHAPTER VIII.
ESCAPING.
Oagla’s band reached the Indian village about nine at night.
They placed the corpse of Omaha on a mat in the center of the council-house, and when the population of the town swarmed about it with vengeful looks and mutterings, the chief rose and addressed the assemblage.
He said that a great night bird, with sharp eyes, had darted from a tree and seized the ring as he was about to pick it up, and that they had followed the feathered thief through the woods until he flew toward the lake, and thus they lost sight of him. Omaha was shot, he said, by an unseen foe, of whose person they were unable to get a single glimpse.
All this, as the reader knows, was a cunning lie. The elder warriors drank it in with great credulity, for Oagla was noted for veracity; but the younger braves whispered to one another, and glanced with faint smiles at the red speaker.