other warriors of
the indignity to which he had been subjected, they were as rampart as he
for revenge. They were on the point of starting for a settlement,
intending to await the chance to shoot down some of the unsuspecting
people, when the leader, a man of iron will, interposed.

He said that according to the story of the Wolf himself, his gun had
been taken from him by a single warrior. A Winnebago ought to be ashamed
to confess such a thing, and the only way by which the Wolf could redeem
himself was to recover his gun unaided by any of his people. Let him
come back to the party with his rifle and then they would risk their
lives a dozen times over to repay the young Shawanoe and his youthful
friend (they knew nothing about Fred Linden) for the insult they had put
upon one of the leading warriors of the Winnebago tribe.

You can well understand how displeasing this decision was to the Wolf,
but there was no help for it. The warrior who gave the order was not
only the leader of the company, but the principal chief of the tribe. No
one dared to dispute his command, and he intimated that it was not only
necessary for the Wolf to recover his gun in order to enlist the
services of the rest, but his standing at home would be compromised if
he went back without his rifle and the story that it had been taken from
him by a single warrior of another tribe.

From this you will understand the eagerness with which the Wolf set out
to regain the weapon.

The fact that Fred Linden and Terry Clark left Greville the next morning
after the affair, mixed matters to that extent that, for a time, the
Winnebago was at fault. It was his intention to prowl around the
settlement, awaiting his chance, for he suspected that Deerfoot had gone
thither with the lad who had given the Wolf such a blow in the face; but
the discovery of the footprints of the two boys leading to the southward
mystified the Indian. He was quite close to the creek, and the sun had
crossed the meridian at the time this discovery was made. It was natural
that he should look for the trail of the Shawanoe, but he could not find
it.

Finally, with a half-suspicion of the truth, the Wolf went into the
settlement to make inquiries. He could speak enough broken English to
make himself understood, and, as it so happened, it was Mr. MacClaskey
himself whom he accosted. He told the inquirer the truth, adding that
Terry took with him a gun that was captured from a vagabond I