We left War–Eagle and his party posted in a thicket of considerable extent, in the centre of a valley through which he had calculated that the marauding band of Sioux would return with the captured horses to their village; long and anxiously did he wait in expectation of their appearance; and both himself and Reginald began to fear that they must have taken some other route, when they saw at a distance an Indian galloping down the valley towards them; as he drew near, the head–dress of eagle’s feathers, the scalp–locks on his leather hunting–shirt, and the fringes by which his leggins were adorned, announced him to the practised eye of the young Delaware chief, as a Dahcotah brave of some distinction; but what was the astonishment of Reginald, at recognising in the fiery steed that bore him, his own lost Nekimi. By an unconscious movement he threw forward his rifle over the log which concealed him, and was preparing to secure a certain aim, when War–Eagle, touching his arm, whispered, “Netis not shoot, more Dahcotahs are coming,—noise of gun not good here, Netis have enough fight soon,—leave this man to War–Eagle, he give Netis back his horse.” Reginald, although disappointed at not being allowed to take vengeance on the approaching savage, saw the prudence of his friend’s counsel, and suffering himself to be guided by it, waited patiently to see how the Delaware proposed to act. The latter, laying aside his rifle, and armed only with his scalp–knife and tomahawk, crept to a thick bush on the edge of the broad trail passing through the centre of the thicket; in his hand he took a worn–out mocassin, which he threw carelessly upon the track, and then ensconced himself in the hiding–place which he had selected for his purpose. The Dahcotah warrior, who had been sent forward by his chief to reconnoitre, and to whom Nekimi had been lent on account of the extraordinary speed which that animal had been found to possess, slackened his speed as he entered the thicket, and cast his wary eyes to the right and to the left, glancing occasionally at the sides of the hills which overhung the valley. The Delawares were too well concealed to be seen from the path, and he rode slowly forward until he came to the spot where lay the mocassin thrown down by War–Eagle.