back to them with empty hands."

That was the substance of his address, put again and again in different
shapes, and it seemed to meet the approval of his listeners.

There is nothing a Lipan brave is really afraid of except ridicule, and
the dread of being laughed at was the strongest argument their leader
could have used to spur them forward.

Once, indeed, he made another sharp hit by pointing to the spot where
Murray and Steve were standing.

"No Tongue has the heart of a Lipan. He says if we go back he will go
on alone. He will take the Yellow Head with him. They will not be
laughed at when they come back. Will the Lipans let their squaws tell
them they are cowards, and dare not follow an old pale-face and a boy?"

A deep, half-angry "ugh" went around the circle.

To-la-go-to-de had won over all the grumblers in his audience, and need
not have talked any more.

He might have stopped right there and proceeded to eat another slice of
buffalo-meat, but when an Indian once learns to be an orator he would
rather talk than eat, any day.

In fact, they are such talkers at home and among themselves, that
Murray had earned the queer name given him by the chief in no other way
than by his habitual silence. He rarely spoke to anybody, and so he
was "No Tongue."

The chief himself had a name of which he was enormously proud, for he
had won it on a battle-field. His horse had been killed under him, in
a battle with the Comanches, when he was yet a young warrior, and he
had fought on foot with a knife in each hand.

From that day forward he was To-la-go-to-de, or "The chief that fights
with two knives."

Any name he may have been known by before that was at once dropped and
forgotten.

It is a noteworthy custom, but the English have something almost
exactly like it. A man in England may be plain Mr. Smith or Mr.
Disraeli for ever so many years, and then all of a sudden he becomes
Lord So-and-So, and nobody ever speaks of him again by the name he
carried when he was a mere "young brave."

It is a great mistake to suppose the red men are altogether different
from the white.

As for Steve, his hair was nearer chestnut than yellow, but it had
given him his Indian name; one that would stick to him until, like
To-la-go-to-de, he should distinguish himself in battle and win a "war
name" of his own.

He and Murray, however they might be regarded as members of the tribe
and of that war-party, had no rights in t