ot contradict the declaration: it was too fearfully probable.
I made no reply.

"Dogs!" fiercely vociferated the savage, "come down, and deliver up your
arms!"

"An' our scalps too, I s'pose," muttered the Yankee. "Neo, certingly
not, at your price: I don't sell my notions so dirt cheep as thet comes
to. 'Twouldn't pay nohow. Lookee yeer, old red gloves!" continued he
in a louder voice, and raising his head above the rampart--"this heer o'
mine air vallable, do ee see? It air a rare colour, an' a putty colour.
It 'ud look jest the thing on thet shield o' yourn; but 'tain't there
yet, not by a long chalk; an' I kalklate ef ye want the skin o' my head,
ye'll have to trot up an' take it."

"Ugh!" ejaculated the Indian with an impatient gesture. "The yellow
squaw is not worth the words of a chief. His scalp is not for the
shield of a warrior. It will be given to the dogs of our tribe. It
will be thrown to the jackals of the prairie."

"Ain't partickler abeout what 'ee do wi' 't--thet is, efter ye've got
it. Don't ye wish 'ee may get it? eh?"

"Wagh!" exclaimed the savage, with another impatient gesticulation.
"The Red-Hand is tired talking. One word more. Listen to it, chief of
the pale-faces! Come down, and deliver up your fire-weapons! The
Red-Hand will be merciful: he will spare your lives. If you resist, he
will torture you with fire. The knives of his warriors will hew the
living flesh from your bones. You shall die a hundred deaths; and the
Great Spirit of the Arapahoes will smile at the sacrifice!"

"And what if we do not resist?"

"Your lives shall be spared. The Red-Hand declares it on the faith of a
warrior."

"Faith o' a warrior!--faith o' a cut-throat! He only wants to come
round us, capting, an' git our scalps 'ithout fightin' for 'em--thet's
what the red verming wants to be at--sure as shootin'."

"Why should the Red-Hand spare our lives?" I enquired, taken by
surprise at any offer of life coming from such a quarter. "Has he not
just said, that all white men are his enemies?"

"True. But white men may become his friends. He wants white men for
his allies. He has a purpose."

"Will the Red-Hand declare his purpose?"

"Freely. His people have taken, many fire-weapons. See! they are
yonder in the hands of his braves, who know not how to use them. Our
enemies--the Utahs--have been taught by the white hunters; and the ranks
of the Arapaho warriors are thinned by their deadly