o thousand Sioux."

Hamilton and Little Fellow, talking loudly and gesticulating, rode
crashing through the furze.

"I knew it! I knew it!" shouted Hamilton fiercely, "One of us should
have gone."

"What's wrong?" came from Father Holland in a voice so low and
unnaturally calm, I knew he feared the worst.

"Wrong!" yelled Hamilton, "They hold La Robe Noire as hostage and
demand five hundred pounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses. Of
course, I should have gone----"

"And would it have mended matters if you'd been held hostage too?" I
demanded, utterly out of patience and at that stage when a little strain
makes a man strike his best friends. "You know very well, the men were
only sent to make an offer. You'd no right to expect everything on one
trip without any bargaining----"

"Shut up, boy!" exclaimed Father Holland. "Just when ye both need all
y'r wits, y'r scattering them to the four winds. Now, mind yourselves! I
don't like these terms! 'Tis the devil's own doing! Let's talk this
over!"

With a vast deal of the wordy eloquence that characterizes Indian
diplomacy, the tenor of Le Grand Diable's message was "His shot pouch
was light and his pipe cold; he hung down his head and the pipe of peace
had not been in the council; the Sioux were strangers and the whites
were their enemies; the pale-faces had been in their power and they had
always conveyed them on their journey with glad hearts and something to
eat." Finally, the Master of Life, likewise Earth, Air, Water, and Fire
were called on to witness that if the white men delivered five hundred
rounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses, the white woman and
her child, likewise the two messengers, would be sent safely back to the
Mandane lodge; none but these two messengers would be permitted in the
Sioux camp; also, the Sioux would not answer for the lives of the white
men if they left the Mandane lodges. Let the white men, therefore, send
back the full ransom by the hands of the same messenger.

CHAPTER XVI

LE GRAND DIABLE SENDS BACK OUR MESSENGER

Father Holland advised caution and consideration before acting. A policy
of bargaining was his counsel.

"I don't like those terms, at all," he said, "too much like giving your
weapons to the enemy. I don't like all this."

He would temporize and rely on Le Grand Diable's covetous disposition
bringing him to our terms; but Hamilton would hear of neither caution
nor delay.

The rans