“What does it all mean?” asked the Gold Girl.
“Explain, Winnesaw; your astounding declarations have confused my poor brain, I can not comprehend you; explain, I say.”
“Wolf Eyes loves the Gold Girl’s brown sister,” the Indian went on, “and White Lasso’s heart beats in fire for--for you, my fair-skinned sister.”
“What! am I beloved or rather coveted by another red-skin?” groaned the captive blonde, a pallor flitting over her face.
“White Lasso wants Gold Girl,” said Winnesaw.
“But, girl, may all this not be a plot of Red Eagle’s planning? You know he hates Kenoagla, as your people call the renegade, and may not the two chiefs be in his employ to rob him of Mabel while he is absent?”
“White Lasso and Red Eagle disputed a deer once, and since that time their lips have been scaled to each other and Wolf Eyes is White Lasso’s brother’s son.”
“If they waited until the war-party returned, they could not tear the pale-face girls from their captors,” continued the Indian girl, after a brief pause.
“Then you think that they intend to carry out their plots to-night?”
“They are the chief’s friends; they too are traitors!”
“Then why did Red Eagle place them here?”
“He did not. The Big Medicine put them where they stand.”
“What dark-faced treachery! I have fallen into a den of traitors, and treachery fills the very air I breathe. But the boy?”
“White Lasso will take him along if he goes to-night.”
“I wonder where George is!” she murmured.
The white girl started and it was her time to blush.
Lina’s blue eyes dropped to her feet, and the crimson mounted to her temples, and tarried there until the Indian girl arose.
“You are not going to leave me now, girl?” said the blonde, imploringly.
“Winnesaw go watch traitors; she come back soon,” was the reply, and before the last sound died away, Lina found herself alone.
The Pawnee girl soon perceived that her footsteps were dogged by a black shadow, and she walked directly to her lodge. After dropping the curtains, she turned, and saw the black detective approaching with the tread of the cat.
After watching him a moment, she turned and threw herself upon her couch like one who would soon yield to the wooings of the drowsy god.
The moonlight stole faintly into her lodge, and a stray beam fell across her face. She threw an arm across her cheeks in sleepy abandon; but peeped out under the bridge of the elbow, and saw the eyes that regarded her from the outside of the wigwam. One of the Indian’s hands clutched a silver-mounted revolver, but she had no occasion to use it, for the eyes soon disappeared, and she heard their owner walking away.