At this harangue the Indians paused, and looked toward the group of Indians whose peculiar garments told that they did not dwell on the Loup fork. Fifty stalwart fellows composed the group, and all at once the plumed heads of the chiefs came together in low conversation. The Loup and Platte Pawnees were not ancient enemies, though, at times, they had met as foemen on the battle-field; and a few words were sufficient to rupture any peace that might exist between them.
The young white buffalo-hunters, as captives, belonged to the Platte Pawnees, and when the survivors of Frontier Shack’s victory besought their Loup brethren for aid, they thought that the boys would be delivered over to them without a word.
But things had turned out strangely, to say the least. Frontier Shack had not fallen into the Indians’ hands, and a ball had entered Red Eagle’s brain. The chief’s death had, in the event of the trapper’s disappearance, been charged to the young adventurer, and the Loup Pawnees now clamored for his hot young blood, and for the gore of his white comrade.
The Indians whom Charley Shafer tried to signal while flying over the prairies on Tecumseh’s back, had proved to be the band of Platte Pawnees, on a buffalo-hunt, and they had joined Tom Kyle’s avengers a few minutes before the terrible explosion of the cottonwood. After the siege, they had been persuaded to accompany Kenoagla’s band to the Pawnee village, where a final disposition of George Long should be made.
The whispered consultation of the Platte chiefs did not last long; their lips closed firmly over certain words, and, at length, the Samsonian leader of the party advanced from the group.
“The chiefs say, ‘Give us our property!’” he said, in a firm tone; “give us the white boys and we will seek our lodges in peace.”
Tom Kyle saw that he stood on the crust of a crater, and his eye calmly swept the sea of red faces beneath his perch.
The fifty mounted Plattes regarded him with anxious faces and their hands clutched the rifles with terrible determination.
“Braves of the Loup, shall two pale boys dye Pawnee ground with Pawnee blood?” asked the renegade, hurling his voice above the clicking of a hundred rifle-locks, and the testing of twice as many arrows. “This pale spawn will die in our brothers’ hands, and Red Eagle will thus be avenged.”
“No! no!” shouted White Lasso’s brother, springing to his horse’s back. “The slayer of Red Eagle shall die by his children’s hands. If Kenoagla is a Loup no longer, let him go to the Apaches, in whose lodges he may be safer than here.”