Buffalo Bill planted the spear with his flag on it in the earth, and sat motionless on his horse close by, until the Ute brave, leaving his chief behind, dashed forward and planted their flag by the first. Then, seeing that Buffalo Bill neither dismounted nor put down his weapons, the Ute chief rode forward armed and bloodstained from the recent battle. CHAPTER XXIV. A PALAVER. Buffalo Bill opened the palaver. “I have not come to smoke the peace pipe, but to talk,” he said. “If the talk of the Ute is good then we may smoke the peace pipe. If not, the soldiers and the scouts are ready for battle. They are many, and there will be more behind to come if they are not enough.” “What has the paleface chief to say to Bear Killer, the chief of the Wasatch Utes?” “The Wasatch? If you belong away over there in Utah what are you doing on this side of the great mountain?” “That is the business of Bear Killer--not of the paleface. Bear Killer is like the wind; he goes wherever his spirit wills, and asks leave from no man. What is the talk of the paleface?” “This chief will speak,” said Buffalo Bill, waving his hand toward Captain Meinhold, who came riding up with Wild Bill, thus making the conferring parties equal in numbers. “Where are the two white captives--the girls who were in your possession?” asked the captain sternly. The chief glanced off quickly toward the base of the cliff, where Mainwaring had declared he had seen the girls, and a look of pleasure lighted up his face, for he had supposed the whites had recaptured them already while the fight was going on. “Why does the paleface chief ask?” he said, now ready to prevaricate or do anything else in order to gain time, for he believed that the four braves he had left in charge of the girls had been crafty enough to retreat with them. “Because he has a right,” was the reply. “The father of these girls mourns for them at the fort of the white soldiers. And they must go back to him, safe and well, or not a red man here shall live to say he has seen them! I speak straight and plain. Where are they? I want them, and mean to have them.” “Bear Killer is a great warrior. He is chief of the Wasatch. Many braves follow him----” “Bear Killer, if that’s your name, will be a head less in height very soon if he does not give me a straight answer!” cried the captain angrily. “Where are the girls? Speak--or I pull up that flag and my troops will ride you down!” “Bear Killer, before the battle, sent them away out of danger,” said the chief, again glancing toward the spot where they had been left. “Alone?” asked Buffalo Bill, who had detected the look. “No; with four braves to guard them from harm.”