“To warn you of death, which would have grabbed you in a moment if you stayed there.”
“Uff! Is death in that wagon? Show him to me!”
“Later, maybe. Have not your spies told you why we are here?”
“I learned from them that you wish to make a road for the fire-horse of the pale-faces.”
“That’s it, and such a road goes over rivers, under ground, and through rocks; you know that, and you may have heard of the stuff with which we blow up the mighty rocks which are in the way of our fire-horse’s feet. Is it that powder with which we load our guns?”
“No; the pale-faces have made another discovery by which they can overthrow whole mountains.”
“Right; and this discovery we carry in that wagon, done up in packages, and if you touch it carelessly it will explode in your hands and blow you into a thousand pieces.”
“Uff! uff!” he grunted, evidently shocked. “Was I near one of these packages?”
“So near that if you had not sprung down you would be this moment in the Happy Hunting Grounds. And what would you have had with you? No medicine, no scalp-lock, nothing, nothing at all, but little bits of flesh and bones. How could you rule as a great chief in the Happy Hunting Grounds in such a state? You would have been crushed under foot by the spirit-horses. An Indian who comes to the Happy Hunting Grounds without medicine or scalp-locks will be received by the dead heroes with contempt, and have to hide from their eyes, while they drink deep of all Indian joys; this is the belief of the red man. What a misfortune, then, to arrive shattered into little bits!”
One could see under the dark skin that the shock had driven the blood from the chief’s face, and he cried: “Ugh! how good that you warned me in time!”
“Because we are friends and brothers,” said Sam.
“I will go and warn my braves, lest they go near that dangerous wagon and suffer death,” said Tangua.
“Do so, I pray you; for not only they, but you and I and all here would be blown up with them. If one who does not understand how to use this discovery were to touch it he would blow up his friends as well as his enemies, while in our hands it is sure to blow up those whom we choose to dispose of. Let us warn your braves, and at the same time remind them that they have not yet greeted their white brothers.”