tin! wasn't it a splindid shat?"

"A shot that may cost us our scalps," said I: for I saw that there was
no longer any chance of a pacific arrangement--even upon the condition
of our making sharpshooters of every redskin in the tribe. "Ha, ha,
ha!" came the wild laugh of the Arapaho. "Vengeance on the pale-faced
traitors! vengeance!"

And shaking his clenched fist above his head, the savage chief retired
among his warriors.

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX.

ATTEMPT TO STAMPEDE.

We made an attempt to open the interrupted parley. In vain. Whatever
amicable design the Red-Hand might have conceived was now changed to a
feeling of the most deadly hostility. There was no more "talk" to be
drawn from him--not a word. In the midst of his warriors, he stood
scowling and silent. Neither did any of the chiefs deign to reply. The
common braves made answers to our overtures; but only by the insult of a
peculiar gesture. Any hopes we might have conceived of a pacific
termination to the encounter, died within us as we noted the behaviour
of the band. Whether the Indian was in earnest in the proposal he had
made, or whether it was a mere scheme to get our scalps without fighting
for them, we could not tell at the time. There was an air of
probability that he was honest about the matter; but, on the other hand,
his notorious character for hostility to the white race contradicted
this probability. I had heard, moreover, that this same chief was in
the habit of adopting such stratagems to get white men into his power.
We had no time to speculate upon the point; nor yet upon that which
puzzled us far more--how he had arrived at the knowledge of who we were!
What could he have known of the "White Eagle of the forest," or the
"young soldier-chief?" So far as I was myself concerned, the title
might have been explained.

My uniform--I still wore it--might have been espied upon the prairies?
The Indians are quick at catching an appellation, and communicating it
to one another. But the figurative soubriquet of the young hunter?
That was more specific. The Red-Hand could not have used it
accidentally? Impossible. It bespoke a knowledge of us, and our
affairs, that appeared mysterious and inexplicable. It did not fail to
recall to our memory the apparition that had astonished Wingrove in the
morning. There was no opportunity to discuss the question. We had only
time for the most vague conjectures--before the savages began to fir