“Has the Teton ever known a warrior of the Loups come to his towns to beg a place for his lodge?” returned the young brave, with a look in which pride and contempt were not attempted to be concealed: “when the Pawnees hunt, do they send runners to ask Mahtoree if there are no Siouxes on the prairies?”

“When there is hunger in the lodge of a warrior, he looks for the buffaloe, which is given him for food,” the Teton continued, struggling to keep down the ire excited by the other’s scorn. “The Wahcondah has made more of them than he has made Indians. He has not said, This buffaloe shall be for a Pawnee, and that for a Dahcotah; this beaver for a Konza, and that for an Omawhaw. No; he said, There are enough. I love my red children, and I have given them great riches. The swiftest horse shall not go from the village of the Tetons to the village of the Loups in many suns. It is far from the towns of the Pawnees to the river of the Osages. There is room for all that I love. Why then should a Red-man strike his brother?”

Hard-Heart dropped one end of his lance to the earth, and having also cast his shield across his shoulder, he sat leaning lightly on the weapon, as he answered with a smile of no doubtful expression—

“Are the Tetons weary of the hunts, and of the war-path? Do they wish to cook the venison, and not to kill it. Do they intend to let the hair cover their heads, that their enemies shall not know where to find their scalps? Go; a Pawnee warrior will never come among such Sioux squaws for a wife!”

A frightful gleam of ferocity broke out of the restraint of the Dahcotah’s countenance, as he listened to this biting insult; but he was quick in subduing the tell-tale feeling, in an expression much better suited to his present purpose.

“This is the way a young chief should talk of war,” he answered with singular composure; “but Mahtoree has seen the misery of more winters than his brother. When the nights have been long, and darkness has been in his lodge, while the young men slept, he has thought of the hardships of his people. He has said to himself, Teton, count the scalps in your smoke. They are all red but two! Does the wolf destroy the wolf, or the rattler strike his brother? You know they do not; therefore, Teton, are you wrong to go on a path that leads to the village of a Red-skin, with a tomahawk in your hand.”

“The Sioux would rob the warrior of his fame? He would say to his young men, Go, dig roots in the prairies, and find holes to bury your tomahawks in; you are no longer braves!”

“If the tongue of Mahtoree ever says thus,” returned the crafty chief, with an appearance of strong indignation, “let his women cut it out, and burn it with the offals of the buffaloe. No,” he added, advancing a few feet nigher to the immovable Hard-Heart, as if in the sincerity of confidence; “the Red-man can never want an enemy: they are plentier than the leaves on the trees, the birds in the heavens, or the buffaloes on the prairies. Let my brother open his eyes wide: does he no where see an enemy he would strike?”

“How long is it since the Teton counted the scalps of his warriors, that were drying in the smoke of a Pawnee lodge? The hand that took them is here, and ready to make eighteen, twenty.”

“Now, let not the mind of my brother go on a crooked path. If a Red-skin strikes a Red-skin for ever, who will be masters of the prairies, when no warriors are left to say, ‘They are mine?’ Hear the voices of the old men. They tell us that in their days many Indians have come out of the woods under the rising sun, and that they have filled the prairies with their complaints of the robberies of the Long-knives. Where a Pale-face comes, a Red-man cannot stay. The land is too small. They are always hungry. See, they are here already!”

As the Teton spoke, he pointed towards the tents of Ishmael, which were in plain sight, and then he paused, to await the effect of his words on the mind of his ingenuous foe. Hard-Heart listened like one in whom a train of novel ideas had been excited by the reasoning of the other. He mused for a minute before he demanded—

“What do the wise chiefs of the Sioux say must be done?”