Not a bow or arrow or war-club among them. All such weapons belong to the old, old times, or to poor, miserable, second-rate Indians, who cannot buy anything better. The fierce and haughty Lipans and Comanches, and other warlike tribes, insist on being armed as well as the United States troops, and even better.
About as much as an Indian with a sword; for that is one weapon the red men could never learn the use of, from King Philip's day to this.
It was luncheon-time with that Lipan war-party, and they were hard at work on their supplies of dried venison and cold roast buffalo-meat.
Their halt would not be a long one in a spot where there was no grass for their horses, but they could hold a council while they were eating, and they could listen to a speech from the short, broad, ugly-looking old chief who now stood in the middle of the circle.
"To-la-go-to-de will not go back now till he has struck the Apaches. He has come too far. The squaws of his village would laugh at him if he rode through the mountains and came 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."