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There, too, stood Henri, making enthusiastic speeches to whoever chose to listen to him, now glaring at the crowd, with clenched fists and growling voice, as he told of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles and buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture, at other times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the predicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in the prairie.
He was not so powerful a man as Mahtawa, but he was more gracefully formed, and had a more noble and commanding countenance. "Have the Pale-faces no wigwams on the great river that they should come to spy out the lands of the Pawnee?" he demanded. "We have not come to spy your country," answered Joe, raising himself proudly as he spoke, and taking off his cap.
"I don't like the look o' things," said Joe, blowing a whiff of smoke slowly from his lips, and watching it as it ascended into the still air. "That blackguard Mahtawa is determined not to let us off till he gits all our goods; an' if he gits them, he may as well take our scalps too, for we would come poor speed in the prairies without guns, horses, or goods."
This allusion to keeping all the goods had more effect on the minds of the vacillating savages than the chiefs eloquence. But a new turn was given to their thoughts by Joe Blunt remarking in a quiet, almost contemptuous tone "Mahtawa is not the great chief." "True, true," they cried, and immediately hurried to the tent of San-it-sa-rish.
Mahtawa raised his head suddenly, and said, pointing to the silver rifle, "Mahtawa wishes to have the two-shotted medicine gun. He will give his best horse in exchange." "Mahtawa is liberal," answered Joe; "but the pale-faced youth cannot part with it. He has far to travel, and must shoot buffaloes by the way."
When the tumult had partly subsided, Joe Blunt rose and said, "Have the Pawnee braves turned traitors that they draw the knife against those who have smoked with them the pipe of peace and eaten their maize? The Pale-faces are three; the Pawnees are thousands. If evil has been done, let it be laid before the chief. Mahtawa wishes to have the medicine gun.
There was an evident disposition on the part of many of the Indians, with whom Mahtawa was no favourite, to applaud this speech; but the wily chief sprang forward, and, with flashing eyes, sought to turn the tables. "The Pale-face speaks with soft words, but his heart is false. Is he not going to make peace with the enemies of the Pawnee?
They turn their eyes to the great mountains and say, 'There we will stop. But even there they will not stop. They are never satisfied; Mahtawa knows them well." This speech sank like a death-knell into the hearts of the hunters, for they knew that if the savages refused to make peace, they would scalp them all and appropriate their goods.
But Joe Blunt could not fail to notice that Mahtawa maintained sullen silence during the whole course of the meeting. He observed also that there was a considerable change in the tone of the meeting when he informed them that he was bound on a similar errand of peace to several of the other tribes, especially to one or two tribes which were the Pawnees' bitter enemies at that time.
"The pale-faced youth shall have a bow and arrows to shoot the buffalo," rejoined the Indian. "He cannot use the bow and arrow," answered Joe; "he has not been trained like the Red-man." Mahtawa was silent for a few seconds, and his dark brows frowned more heavily than ever over his eyes.
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