Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/86

 Are you a chief, that you close your eyes to such things? We ask for our horse, or else a large present."

"Whose horse is it?"

"It is a Pawnee horse, and that is enough."

"The horse was not here last night, but it was here early this morning," announced White Wolf. "The American did not go out and get it. I am sure of that. If he did, why should he have brought it here, if he had stolen it? He could have easily made off with it, and others. No; the thief who took the horse from the Americans has returned it, as is right. Let the man who claims to own the horse come forward. But I think there is nothing more to be said."

The soldier was sitting, in his stained blue clothes, and gazing around with a good-natured smile on his hairy face; but Scar Head could see that he was thinking fast, and ready to spring for the lodge and his gun.

"Are you going to send him away with the horse?"

"Who owns the horse?" White Wolf replied. "Why was it left at my lodge door if not for the American to take with him? Somebody had bad dreams, and went and got the horse, so that he might sleep."