Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/39

 These were the Spanish, were they, from the south? Scar Head had not supposed that so many could come so far, all together. The nation of the Spanish must be a great and powerful nation.

A guard saw the Iskatappe file approaching. He shouted warning of them, and leveled his gun.

Iskatappe lifted his hand in the peace sign.

"Amigos—friends," he called. He knew a little Spanish. So did most of the Pawnees—a little Spanish picked up from the Comanches and southern Utahs, and a little French picked up from the St. Louis traders who visited the Pawnee country.

"Qué tiene—what do you want?" the guard demanded, stopping them with his gun. He was dressed in a blue cloth hunting-shirt with red trimmings, and leather wrappings upon his legs, and huge loose-topped leather moccasins reaching to his knees, and a broad-brimmed high-crowned hat with ribbons on it; and all his face was covered with bushy black hair. He was armed with a short-barreled gun, and a long knife in a scabbard. He certainly looked like a stout warrior.

"El capitan," Iskatappe replied, meaning that he wished to see the chief.

Other Spanish soldiers came running. Their head warrior said: "Come," and with the Iskatappe