do not believe me, wait a few moments, and you will see my friends come round the point of yonder hill. They are many, and intend to remain several moons in your country. If you treat them well you will grow rich and get many presents, but if you treat them badly they will search you out among the rocks and hills of your country, will take possession of your watering places, will destroy your plantations and kill your warriors. Now choose."
Cuchillo Negro.—"For many years no white man has penetrated these regions, and we do not permit people to enter our country without knowing their purpose. If you had friends, as you say, you would not have left them and come on alone, for that is foolish. My young men have not been led away by the squaws, for there are none within two sun's march, and if you had a large party with you, they would have known it and given me notice. You have many guns, but I have many men, and you cannot escape if I give the signal."
American.—"Indian, I don't think you will give that signal so long as you and I are so close together. Wait a few moments, and see whether I tell the truth."
This proposition was finally agreed to by him, and we sat on our horses waiting the approach of the carriage. It is unnecessary to say what my feelings were during the next quarter of an hour, nor to explain the manœuvres each adopted to get or keep the advantage of his enemy. I feel incapable of doing justice to the occasion. At the expiration of the time mentioned, the carriage hove in sight, about a quarter of a mile off, rounding the point of the mountain, and it had been detained so much during the march through the rocky and terrible defile that the infantry had come up with it and presented a formidable array of glittering tubes immediately in its rear.
