Though it would be a death that an honest man
might not wish to die. Look at that noble Pawnee, Teton, and see what
a Red-skin may become, who fears the Master of Life, and follows his
laws. How many of your people has he sent to the distant prairies?" he
continued in a sort of pious fraud, thinking, that while the danger
menaced himself, there could surely be no sin in extolling the merits
of another; "how many howling Siouxes has he struck, like a warrior in
open combat, while arrows were sailing in the air plentier than flakes
of falling snow! Go! will Weucha speak the name of one enemy he has
ever struck?"
"Hard-Heart!" shouted the Sioux, turning in his fury, and aiming a
deadly blow at the head of his victim. His arm fell into the hollow of
the captive's hand. For a single moment the two stood, as if entranced
in that attitude, the one paralysed by so unexpected a resistance, and
the other bending his head, not to meet his death, but in the act of
the most intense attention. The women screamed with triumph, for they
thought the nerves of the captive had at length failed him.
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