Did the white head think to ride on the
horse of a Sioux?"
The trapper, who had found time to collect his perplexed faculties,
saw at once that Middleton, having perceived Ishmael on the trail by
which they had fled, preferred trusting to the hospitality of the
savages, than to the treatment he would be likely to receive from the
hands of the squatter. He therefore disposed himself to clear the way
for the favourable reception of his friends, since he found that the
unnatural coalition became necessary to secure the liberty, if not the
lives, of the party.
"Did my brother ever go on a war-path to strike my people?" he calmly
demanded of the indignant chief, who still awaited his reply.
The lowering aspect of the Teton warrior so far lost its severity, as
to suffer a gleam of pleasure and triumph to lighten its ferocity, as
sweeping his arm in an entire circle around his person he answered--
"What tribe or nation has not felt the blows of the Dahcotahs?
Mahtoree is their partisan."
"And has he found the Big-knives women, or has he found them men?"
A multitude of fierce passions were struggling in the tawny
countenance of the Indian.
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