For the next few days Boy Scar Head was all eyes and ears. The Americans kept close in camp and were very watchful. Only Baroney the interpreter rode back and forth, looking for horses. Chief Charakterik seemed much troubled. He had not counted upon the Americans being so stubborn. He sent the Kansas home. They had promised to guide the Americans; but he gave Wah-on-son-ga a gun and two horses, and told him that the Padoucahs would certainly kill everybody; so Wah-on-son-ga took his men home. Frank, the Pawnee-who-had-been-to-Wash’ton, stole the wife of an Osage and ran away with her. This made the Osages angry; and now the Americans were getting angry, too. They had found only three or four horses. Then―― “The Americans are going to march to-morrow!” That was the word from the warriors who spied upon the camp. Chief Pike rode down, unafraid, with Baroney, to White Wolf’s lodge. Scar Head hid in a corner, to hear what was said. He liked the crisp voice and the handsome face of this young Mungo-Meri Pike. Maybe he would never see him again. “Why have you told the Kansas to go home, and made them break their promise to me?” demanded Chief Pike, of White Wolf. “The hearts of the Kansas failed them. They decided they would only be throwing their lives away, to go with such a small party into the country of the Padoucah,” answered White Wolf. “You frightened them with your stories,” Chief Pike accused. “That was not right. I have come from your father, to make peace among his red children. Why do you forbid your men to trade us horses? You have plenty. Why do you not lend us a man who speaks the Ietan tongue, to help us?” “If, as you say, we all are children of the American father, then we do not wish our brothers to give up their lives,” White Wolf said. “But we do not know. The Spanish claim this country, too. They are coming back next spring. We promised them not to let you march through. You can come next spring and talk with them.” “No!” thundered Chief Pike. “We are going to march on. We are Americans and will go where we are ordered by the great father. The Osages have given us five of their horses. They have shown a good heart. I will speak well of them, to their father.” “They gave you their poor horses, because they got better ones from us,” replied White Wolf. “If the Pawnee try to stop us, it will cost them at least one hundred warriors,” Chief Pike asserted. “You will have to kill every one of us, and we will die fighting. Then the American nation will send such an army that the very name Pawnee will be forgotten.” He arose, and his flashing blue eyes marked Boy Scar Head huddled upon a roll of buffalo-robes. “Who is that boy?” he asked. “He is my son,” Charakterik answered. “He cannot be your son,” reproved Chief Pike. “He is white, you are red. I think he is an American. Where did you get him?” “He is my son. I have adopted him,” White Wolf insisted. “I got him from the Utahs.” “Where are his parents?”