Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/324

 "What?"

Bridger frowned,

"One of the head men is asking Gauche if we are to be let go without paying a big price. He says we do not belong to the fort; that the Assiniboins would be fools if they didn't make a profit out of us. Now Gauche is talking but I can not hear him well— Buf'ler 'n' beaver! Hear 'em now! That means he's made 'em mad—that he's told 'em we're to go without paying any ransom. He's the boss an' his word is law—let 'em howl all they want to. There's just one thing that'll make him change his mind an' treat us like dirt."

"If we fail to cure this man," said Lander.

"Not by a dern sight. If his warriors don't find that keelboat. Talk to your medicine, boy, an' git it to working. They just got to find that boat."

He lifted a finger and turned to the sick man. Gauche glided in, his dark face scowling.

"Some of my men talk like fools," he growled. "Some of them will go hunting their uncles among the spirits. They forget I am the Left Hand, that I am Mina-Yougha the Knife-Holder and Wakontonga the Great Medicine. It comes of taking them to the white man's fort.