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 reported. "I think they mean trouble. A little tobacco, lieutenant; maybe a little tobacco and powder."

"You had best look out, lieutenant," warned the doctor. "I don't like their looks."

"Tell the chief he will get nothing else. He can take those presents or leave them," bade the lieutenant, to Baroney.

Baroney hated to do it, but he had to obey. The head chief scowled. Then he signed, and an old man lugged in a kettle of water, as a return present.

Stub heard the Pawnee warriors talking scornfully.

"See what manner of men these white men are, with their rags and their poor gifts," they said. "They do not travel like the Spanish. They look like beggars."

But Stub well knew that although their horses were thin and sore, and they themselves were lean and tattered and almost barefoot, these Americans could fight.

Now Chief Pike and the two Pawnee chiefs drank from the kettle of water, out of their hands, and smoked the pipe, and ate a little dried buffalo meat. Several Indians were called upon by the chief, to pass the knives and flints and steels around. In