The next moment he sprung from his horse, and, guarded by a score of warriors, he was hurried away.
“Curse that sharp-eyed girl!” he muttered. “I’ll have her blood for this yet! And the Gold Girl shall be mine in spite of all the red demons of the prairie! Though dethroned, the Pawnee king is not friendless!”
In the jaws of death, villains plot anew.
CHAPTER IX.
“YOU’VE GOT MY HORSE.”
Tom Kyle was thrown into the only strong wooden structure that the Pawnee village contained, while the young adventurers were placed in a lodge and guarded by equal numbers of Platte and Loup Pawnees.
Lina Aiken was taken to the Medicine’s wigwam, while Winnesaw was, also, closely guarded, for she was guilty of the death of two of her people, and she must certainly atone for the crime with her own blood. But she had baffled White Lasso, and succeeded in keeping the white boy from the smoky lodges of the Sioux. That, at least, was a source of comfort to her, when she knew that the Plattes would regain their captives, and that she would die with her lips far from his.
Such a state of affairs had never before reigned in the Pawnee village, and the Indians consequently were greatly excited over it. The guilt and innocence of Tom Kyle were discussed everywhere during the day; the Platte braves being obliged to remain to await the result of the renegade’s trial, which would take place the following day. The treason smothered so long had now broken forth, and, in its strength, it swept every thing before it. The conspiring chiefs chafed at the delay; they demanded an immediate trial; but the majority of the oldest sachems counseled the postponement of the crisis, and they prevailed.
Tom Kyle still possessed many true friends, and it was true policy that their words should produce some effect.
The afternoon was rapidly fading away, when a solitary Crow Indian rode into the Pawnee village. His rifle was thrown across his back, as the sign of peace, and his scalping knife and tomahawk were inverted in his belt. A single feather comprised his head dress, and it was interwoven in his scalp-lock, in a curious and somewhat artistic manner. He was an Indian of middle age, but the thick painting hid many wrinkles, and several vermilion lines on his massive breast revealed the presence of arrow or lance scars. His leggings, as well as the sides of his horse, dripped with water, which proclaimed that he had crossed the Loup fork at its deepest point, and he busied himself in arranging the drenched fringes of his nether garments, with a view to enhancing his appearance in the eyes of his Pawnee brethren.
He found himself besieged by hundreds of women and children, long before he reached the council square; but he resolutely pushed his animal through the masses, nor did he draw rein until the warriors gathered about and demanded his name and errand.