"
"Wagh! Mahtoree is a rich chief. He is master of the prairies."
"He must give the dark-hair."
The brow of the chief contracted in an ominous frown, that threatened
instant destruction to the audacious squatter; but as suddenly
recollecting his policy, he craftily replied--
"A girl is too light for the hand of such a brave. I will fill it with
buffaloes."
"He says he has need of the light-hair, too; who has his blood in her
veins."
"She shall be the wife of Mahtoree; then the Long-knife will be the
father of a chief."
"And me," continued the trapper, making one of those expressive signs,
by which the natives communicate, with nearly the same facility as
with their tongues, and turning to the squatter at the same time, in
order that the latter might see he dealt fairly by him; "he asks for a
miserable and worn-out trapper."
The Dahcotah threw his arm over the shoulder of the old man, with an
air of great affection, before he replied to this third and last
demand.
"My friend is old," he said, "and cannot travel far.
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