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The words were spoken with all the venom of a savage threat, and before Holden could make reply the Medicine Man was speaking loudly to Swift Arrow. "The Dacotahs shall see great medicine when the fiery totem again turn eyes upon the evil water-spirits. Thunder-maker will now go to his teepee. He would speak with his little children that they show much magic."
Arnold questioned in a whisper, and, with the question, the explanation seemed to flash into Holden's mind like a flame of fire. "Thunder-maker!" he exclaimed. "The treacherous hound! This is his work. I was wakened by something before. He must have been letting loose his vile creatures."
"Yet that's what Thunder-maker means," said Arnold, to whom the solution of the mystery was now equally clear. "That is what you wish us to understand, isn't it, Thunder-maker?" "The understanding of the white man travels quick." "And that accounts for the kind treatment the food, half-freedom, and the rest. But if your people think us spirits, why do they keep us here? Why not let us return?"
I promised myself to have a go at that skunk Thunder-maker, before I make my bow to the world. But for him, I believe this trouble would never have gone so far." "He certainly did his best to pile it on," agreed the younger man. "I imagine that he was rather in hot water this morning, for I thought I heard him yelling. There's no mistaking that harsh voice of his.
Or are you children of your rightful chief? Who is chief of the Dacotahs Thunder-maker or Mighty Hand?" "The fiery totem is on the breast of Mighty Hand," answered one of the warriors. The hubbub had fallen, and all were listening intently partly with the native courtesy that forbids the rude interruption of speech, and partly because the better self was beginning to replace the moment's frenzy.
"I see," said Arnold thoughtfully. "But you forget, Thunder-maker, that your trickery with the snakes helped them to that opinion." Once more the Medicine Man laughed quietly in a manner that irritated his hearers, and Holden broke in roughly "Come now, you old cheat, explain yourself! You didn't believe as the rest of your people did. And if not, why did you behave in such a double way?
"Did not Thunder-maker say that these evil spirits have tongues of magic? Did he not say that no weapon could prevail against those magic words? But let it be as my red brothers wish. Mighty Hand rest in teepee. He not come from tent at night, unless the war-cry call him. So let it be as these dogs say.
"We can give you many dollars, and will give you blankets and weapons for hunting." "That is good," returned the redskin quietly. "But Thunder-maker no wish blankets dollars, He have many many." Then he lowered his voice to speak in deeper tones of confidence. "Let the pale-face be patient, and listen to the words of the redman.
How this strain of argument might have progressed it is hard to say, but it was cut short by a cry like that of a wild beast, as Thunder-maker sprang through the crowd, dressed in all the hideous regalia of his profession. "Dogs!" he cried furiously. "Do the pale-faces come to insult the great chief of Dacotahs and say that the fiery totem lie? Ugh! Spit upon them, Mighty Hand!
"Come, my little son come, my little daughter!" Then he shook the knot of the bundle, and out from the aperture crept two grey-green bodies a pair of twisting, writhing somethings that caused the onlookers to shudder and the Medicine Man to laugh, as he repeated carelessly "Come, my little papooses! You will speak great medicine in the ears of Thunder-maker!"
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