All at once, after three minutes’ silence, the Platte chief spoke:
“Shall we have the pale boys?”
“No!”
The little monosyllable pealed from three hundred throats as from the throat of one man.
Then the eyes that covered broad, bare breasts, dropped nearer the rifle-barrels and bow-strings; but a voice, and the springing of a girlish form from the body of Red Eagle, stayed the hand of massacre.
“Stay your hands, Plattes and Loups!” she cried, pausing between the divided tribes. “The pale boy did not slay Red Eagle. The ball that reached his brain came from Kenoagla’s rifle!”
The effect was electrical.
Every rifle was lowered, and every eye fell upon Tom Kyle.
His face became as pale as death, and, trembling visibly, he rose in his stirrups.
“The red snake who basely shot White Lasso hates the Pawnee King. She would save the pale boys, and see him die. The warriors will not listen to her false tongue when they can read her heart.”