The prisoner had, in the meantime, been brought out, and was sitting under a tree a few yards from the council ground, surrounded by a crowd of squaws and children and guarded by two young braves, who had not yet taken a scalp in battle, and, therefore, were not allowed to have any voice or vote in deciding his fate.  
He was unbound. His friends, except Buffalo Bill, were with him. As he knew of this last effort which was being made in his behalf, he was, of course, waiting for the verdict in great excitement.
 
Congo was the first to speak.
 
“Here comes Massa Cody! He’s a-shakin’ his head an’ lookin’ berry sober. I reckon it’s all ober wid you.”
 
So it was. The decision was against mercy by a majority of fifteen votes.
 
A shout from the prisoner and a beckoning of his hands toward his friends showed that he desired them to come to him. They at once followed the rabble of squaws and children who were moving, with the condemned man in their midst, toward the place where the gantlet was to be run.
 
The lines were already being formed, almost at the same spot where the mimic punishment had taken place half an hour before.
 
Poor Hare now seemed too much frightened to stand any chance of escape in the ordeal that was before him—that was now so close at hand.
 
 
He had already thrown off his hunting jacket, and was dressed only in his underclothing, shirt and trousers, with boots and a sombrero.
 
He was deathly pale about the forehead and temples, but there was a flush on his cheeks which went and came quickly. This, with his pallor, his wide-open nostrils, and his glaring eyes, proclaimed his excitement to be little less than that of a madman.
 
Perhaps it would have been well for him if he had been mad at this moment, for insanity might have nerved him to some deed of daring that would have saved his life.
 
His conductors stopped for his friends to come up when they saw that was his wish, and he handed to Buffalo Bill the letters which he had written to his wife and father. He had kept them by him until now, for the purpose of adding some pencil postscripts to them from time to time.
 
He had given his watch and pocketbook to Buffalo Bill secretly the evening before, being afraid that he might be plundered of them, though the border king had faith enough in the honor of the Sioux to believe that there was no danger of such a thing happening.
 
Two redskins caught hold of the prisoner’s arm and dragged him along, one of them saying impatiently, in English:
 
“Too much talk. No good!”
 
Hare looked back and exclaimed:
 
“Try—try, Cody, for mercy’s sake! Don’t give me up yet! Try something—try anything!”
 
“We would fight it out for you, Hare,” Cody replied—even at the risk of the Indians understanding. “But you know we must think of the women first. What would their fate be if we fell, as fall we almost certainly all would?”
 
Hare made some reply, but his custodians hurried[269] him along and Cody could not hear it. The crowd which now enveloped the prisoner prevented the white men from getting near him.
 
Black Panther was hurrying to and fro like a field officer on parade day, except that he was on foot; and if he came near the white men he gave them no opportunity to address him, but plainly showed by his manner toward them that he considered their presence there an impertinence and an intrusion.
 
“He feels mighty big,” said Congo angrily. “I should just like to have him alone a little while out in a field dere, widout any weapons ’cept our fists. I’d give him such a drubbin’ dat he’d squeal like a dog cotched under a wagon wheel.”
 
“Come, Cody,” said the captain, who saw the painfully anxious look of the king of the scouts. “It is plain that nothing more can be done. We must think of the women before everything. It will never do to turn the vengeance of these savages against the whole lot of us.”
 
“Don’t let us stay and see the man butchered,” said another of the party.
 
“So say I,” agreed another. “We have stayed here too long for the safety of the women already.”
 
The other men concurred, except Buffalo Bill.
 
“Go, my friends, if you consider it your duty,” he said. “There are the boats—take them and go. I shall certainly stay. I promised this poor man to stay by him to the last, and I shall do it. We cannot tell what chance may turn up, even at this eleventh hour. I do not think he has many minutes of life left, but still there may be an opportunity of saving him.”
 
Captain Meinhold hesitated, but, as it now became evident that the lines were complete and the race about to begin, curiosity detained him. Indeed, that same feeling—morbid, though not unnatural—induced the whole party to press closer to the course to get a better view.
 
The crowd had broken away from the starting end of the line; some of the squaws and larger boys having taken their places in the ranks, clubs in hand, and others being scattered along the route, where they could better see its whole exte............