“But he returned,” said another.
“To his lodge, Squatting Bear! Hunt him down, warriors! He is the traitor! The red-man with a treacherous white skin!”
“What’s that, chief: Gold Feather not a true red-skin?” asked the renegade, with evident surprise.
“Gold Feather is a white man!”
“I would never have dreamed that. How long has he been with you?”
The chief studied a moment.
“Twenty summers.”
Tom Kyle started at the reply.
“I had a brother once,” he said. “My father took him to Mexico about twenty years ago, for he and mother quarreled and parted. But the Comanches caught and killed them. No, Gold Feather is not my brother; he—”
An Indian suddenly paused before the twain, and broke the renegade’s sentence.