Midnight Jack, or Running Water—as the Sioux now called him—felt that he was not far from his sister. He had tracked her captors to the confines of the Sioux town; but as yet his keen eyes had not managed to discover her.
Happily, his past intercourse with hunting-parties of the red nation had given him a speaking knowledge of their language, and his companion, who knew something of almost every tribe west of the Missouri, could, as he expressed it, speak the tongue “like er native.”
The drums had ceased to sound, and but few Indians remained in the square. The rest had sought their lodges, there to dream of the brutalities of the sun-dance, and to prepare their bodies for the endurance which many of the younger bucks had determined on in face of the assembled tribe.
“Hyar ar the ropes—strong enough to hold an ox up,” whispered Rube, as he and the road-agent began to inspect the lofty torture-pole in the dim light of the stars.
“Ye've seen the sun-dance, Mid—cuss it all! I mean Runnin' Water.”
“I hev,” was the interruption. “The red dogs run a knife through the thick muscles of the breast—right hyar—an' put in a good wooden skewer. To this they tie one of these ropes, an' then they dance about the pole, an' fall back with their full weight. It's terrible! Sometimes the muscles give way soon; but if they're extra tough they hold out five hours. It's a sickening sight.”
“No; but I'd like to try the dance once.”
“Yes, me! the Screamin' Eagle of the Smoky Roost, alias the Red Jingo of the Little Big Horn.”
“You'd better not, Rube. You'll have other use for your muscles before you get out of this devil land. Think of my sister—very near us now, no doubt. Leave the sun-dance alone; let Indians mutilate themselves.”
But the old borderer was not to be diverted by his companion's word.
In his mind he had determined to attempt the sun-dance on the morrow, and become the only white man who had submitted to the horrible torture.
Silently the two adventurers glided from the square, and sought the lodge which Setting Sun had allotted to them as visitors.
As yet the death of Sweep-the-Sky had not been discovered, and Mouseskin's trumpet was still mute.
Midnight Jack threw himself upon the scanty skins within the lodge, and soon fell asleep.