No other change was made by his
appearance, than a renewal of the threatening gestures, with, if
possible, a still less equivocal display of their remorseless
intentions. Making a sign for them to cease, the old man demanded--
"Why do the mothers of the Tetons sing with bitter tongues? The Pawnee
prisoners are not yet in their village; their young men have not come
back loaded with scalps!"
He was answered by a general howl, and a few of the boldest of the
furies even ventured to approach him, flourishing their knives within
a dangerous proximity of his own steady eye-balls.
"It is a warrior you see, and no runner of the Long-knives, whose face
grows paler at the sight of a tomahawk," returned the trapper, without
moving a muscle. "Let the Sioux women think; if one White-skin dies, a
hundred spring up where he falls."
Still the hags made no other answer, than by increasing their speed in
the circle, and occasionally raising the threatening expressions of
their chant, into louder and more intelligible strains.
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