Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/74

 away, to go with such a small party into the country of the Padoucah," answered White Wolf.

"You frightened them with your stories," Chief Pike accused. "That was not right. I have come from your father, to make peace among his red children. Why do you forbid your men to trade us horses? You have plenty. Why do you not lend us a man who speaks the Ietan tongue, to help us?"

"If, as you say, we all are children of the American father, then we do not wish our brothers to give up their lives," White Wolf said. "But we do not know. The Spanish claim this country, too. They are coming back next spring. We promised them not to let you march through. You can come next spring and talk with them."

"No!" thundered Chief Pike. "We are going to march on. We are Americans and will go where we are ordered by the great father. The Osages have given us five of their horses. They have shown a good heart. I will speak well of them, to their father."

"They gave you their poor horses, because they got better ones from us," replied White Wolf.

"If the Pawnee try to stop us, it will cost them at least one hundred warriors," Chief Pike asserted. "You will have to kill every one of us, and we will die fighting. Then the American nation will send