Chapter 5

Why, worthy father, what have we to lose?
--The law
Protects us not. Then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us!
Play judge and executioner.
--Cymbeline.

While the Teton thus enacted his subtle and characteristic part, not a
sound broke the stillness of the surrounding prairie. The whole band
lay at their several posts, waiting, with the well-known patience of
the natives, for the signal which was to summon them to action. To the
eyes of the anxious spectators who occupied the little eminence,
already described as the position of the captives, the scene presented
the broad, solemn view of a waste, dimly lighted by the glimmering
rays of a clouded moon. The place of the encampment was marked by a
gloom deeper than that which faintly shadowed out the courses of the
bottoms, and here and there a brighter streak tinged the rolling
summits of the ridges. As for the rest, it was the deep, imposing
quiet of a desert.

But to those who so well knew how much was brooding beneath this
mantle of stillness and night, it was a scene of high and wild
excitement. Their anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute
passed away, and not the smallest sound of life arose out of the calm
and darkness which enveloped the brake. The breathing of Paul grew
louder and deeper, and more than once Ellen trembled at she knew not
what, as she felt the quivering of his active frame, while she leaned
dependently on his arm for support.

The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha,
have already been exhibited. The reader, therefore, will not be
surprised to learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he
had himself imposed. It was at the precise moment when we left
Mahtoree yielding to his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed
the number and quality of Ishmael's beasts of burden, that the man he
had selected to watch his captives chose to indulge in the malignant
pleasure of tormenting those it was his duty to protect. Bending his
head nigh the ear of the trapper, the savage rather muttered than
whispered--

"If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands of the
Long-knives[*], old shall die as well as young!"

[*] The whites are so called by the Indians, from their swords.

"Life is the gift of the Wahcondah," was the unmoved reply. "The
burnt-wood warrior must submit to his laws, as well as his other
children. Men only die when he chooses; and no Dahcotah can change the
hour."

"Look!" returned the savage, thrusting the blade of his knife before
the face of his captive. "Weucha is the Wahcondah of a dog."

The old man raised his eyes to the fierce