He pondered
for a minute, and then bending his look wistfully on his young
associate, again continued--
"Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I have told my son what I
cannot, but let him open his ears to what I can do. An elk shall not
measure the prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the Pawnee
will give me a message that a white man may bear."
"Let the Pale-face listen," returned the other, after hesitating a
single instant longer, under a lingering sensation of his former
disappointment. "He will stay here till the Siouxes have done counting
the scalps of their dead warriors. He will wait until they have tried
to cover the heads of eighteen Tetons with the skin of one Pawnee; he
will open his eyes wide, that he may see the place where they bury the
bones of a warrior."
"All this will I, and may I, do, noble boy."
"He will mark the spot, that he may know it."
"No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place," interrupted the
other, whose fortitude began to give way under so trying an exhibition
of calmness and resignation.
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