as a ruse to
protract the ceremony and gain time; while we--I answer for Seguin and
myself--were chafing at the delay.

When the pipe came round to the hunters, it passed in quicker time.

The unsocial smoke was at length ended, and the negotiation began.

At the very commencement of the "talk," I saw that we were going to have
a difficulty. The Navajoes, particularly the younger warriors, assumed
a bullying and exacting attitude that the hunters were not likely to
brook; nor would they have submitted to it for a moment but for the
peculiar position in which their chief was placed. For his sake they
held in as well as they could; but the tinder was apparent, and would
not bear many sparks before it blazed up.

The first question was in relation to the number of the prisoners. The
enemy had nineteen, while we, without including the queen or the Mexican
girls, numbered twenty-one. This was in our favour; but, to our
surprise, the Indians insisted that their captives were grown women,
that most of ours were children, and that two of the latter should be
exchanged for one of the former!

To this absurdity Seguin replied that we could not agree; but, as he did
not wish to keep any of their prisoners, he would exchange the
twenty-one for the nineteen.

"Twenty-one!" exclaimed a brave; "why, you have twenty-seven. We
counted them on the bank."

"Six of those you counted are our own people. They are whites and
Mexicans."

"Six whites!" retorted the savage; "there are but five. Who is the
sixth?"

"Perhaps it is our queen; she is light in colour. Perhaps the pale
chief has mistaken her for a white!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the savages, in a taunting laugh. "Our queen a
white! Ha! ha! ha!"

"Your queen," said Seguin, in a solemn voice; "your queen, as you call
her, is my daughter."

"Ha! ha! ha!" again howled they, in scornful chorus; "your daughter!
Ha! ha! ha!" and the room rang with their demoniac laughter.

"Yes!" repeated he, in a loud but faltering voice, for he now saw the
turn that things were taking. "Yes, she is my daughter."

"How can that be?" demanded one of the braves, an orator of the tribe.
"You have a daughter among our captives; we know that. She is white as
the snow upon the mountain-top. Her hair is yellow as the gold upon
these armlets. The queen is dark in complexion; among our tribes there
are many as light as she, and her hair is like the wing of the black
vulture. How is th