ts to
escape? Shall they live? No! we will hang their scalps in our wigwams,
for they have _struck a chief_ and we will keep all their goods for our
squaws--wah!"

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.

Once again this chief stood between the hunters and the savages, who
wanted but a signal to fall on them. There was a long palaver, which
ended in Henri being set at liberty, and the rifle being restored.

That evening, as the three friends sat beside their fire eating their
supper of boiled maize and buffalo meat, they laughed and talked as
carelessly as ever; but the gaiety was assumed, for they were at the
time planning their escape from a tribe which, they foresaw, would not
long refrain from carrying out their wishes, and robbing, perhaps
murdering them.

"Ye see," said Joe with a perplexed air, while he drew a piece of live
charcoal from the fire with his fingers and lighted his pipe,--"ye see,
there's more difficulties in the way o' gettin' off than ye think--"

"Oh! nivare mind de difficulties," interrupted Henri, whose wrath at the
treatment he had received had not yet cooled down. "Ve must jump on de
best horses ve can git hold, shake our fist at de red reptiles, and go
away fast as ve can. De best hoss _must_ vin de race."

Joe shook his head. "A hundred arrows would be in our backs before we
got twenty yards from the camp. Besides, we can't tell which are the
best horses. Our own are the best in my 'pinion, but how are we to git
'em?"

"I know who has charge o' them," said Dick; "I saw them grazing near the
tent o' that poor squaw whose baby was saved by Crusoe. Either her
husband looks after them or some neighbours."

"That's well," said Joe. "That's one o' my difficulties gone."

"What are the others?"

"Well, d'ye see, they're troublesome. We can't git the horses out o'
camp without bein' seen, for the red rascals would see what we were at
in a jiffy. Then, if we do git 'em out, we can't go off without our
bales, an' we needn't think to take 'em from under the nose o' the chief
and his squaws without bein' axed questions. To go off without them
would niver do at all."

"Jo