There was a universal shout of contempt at this mild proposal. Unfortunately, most of them seemed glad to have a chance of venting their hatred of the poor Indians on this unhappy wretch, who, although calm, looked sharply from one speaker to another, to gather hope, if possible, from the tones of their voices.
Dick was resolved, at the risk of a quarrel with Pierre, to save the poor man’s life, and had made up his mind to insist on having him conducted to the camp to be tried by Cameron, when one of the men suggested that they should take the savage to the top of a hill about three miles farther on, and there hang him up on a tree as a warning.
“Agreed, agreed!” cried the men; “come on.”
Dick, too, seemed to agree to this proposal, and hastily ordered Crusoe to run on ahead with the savage—an order which the dog obeyed so vigorously that, before the men had done laughing, he was a couple of hundred yards ahead.
“Take care that he don’t get off!” cried Dick, springing on Charlie and stretching out at a gallop.
In a moment he was beside the Indian. Scraping together the little of the Indian language he knew, he stooped down, and, cutting the thongs that bound him, said,—“Go! white men love the Indians.”
The man cast on his deliverer one glance of surprise, and the next moment bounded into the bushes and was gone.
A loud shout from the party behind showed that this act had been observed; and Crusoe stood with the end of the line in his mouth, and an expression on his face that said, “You’re absolutely incomprehensible, Dick! It’s all right, I know, but to my feeble capacity it seems wrong.”
“Fat for you do dat?” shouted Pierre in a rage, as he came up with a menacing look.
Dick confronted him. “The prisoner was mine. I had a right to do with him as it liked me.”
“True, true,” cried several of the men who had begun to repent of their resolution, and were glad the savage was off. “The lad’s right. Get along, Pierre.”
“You had no right, you vas wrong. Oui, et I have goot vill to give you one knock on de nose.”
Dick looked Pierre in the face, in a manner that cowed him. “It is time,” he said quietly, pointing to the sun, “to go on. Your bourgeois expects that time won’t be wasted.”
Pierre muttered something in an angry tone, dashed forward at full gallop, followed by the rest of the men.
