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Show THE DEATH SENTENCE. 123 articles of Indian manufacture as were new to us, and endeavor-ing to while away the time till the arrival of the chief, " A little before noon twelve Navajoe braves, armed with bows and arrows and rifles, rode up on a gallop, and dismounting^ entered the lodge without shaking hands, and called in an inso-lent tone of voice for tobacco. We gave them some, and after smoking awhile they threw everything out of the lodge, saying there were more Navajoes coming, enough to fill the lodge. Sure enough, there soon rode up some more Navajoes, making ninteen in all, but still no chief. " To our inquiry as to his whereabouts, they replied he was gone to Fort Defiance. We took our seats, completely filling the lodge, and all hands smoked in silence for some time. Then the Indian whose lodge we occupied commenced talking, and spoke with only an occasional momentary interruption from the others for about an hour. " After him five or six others talked in rapid succession, and from their earnest tones and impassioned gestures, so different from the usual manner of Indians, we could see they were much excited. " We could not, of course, understand much of what they said, but could gather enough to know that the temper they were in boded no good to us. One old scoundrel, of brawny frame and hair as white as snow, talked in a stentorian voice, and his fre-quent use of the gestures of drawing his hand across his throat, looked particularly ominous. " In about an hour more they ceased speaking, and, after a pause, told their interpreter to talk. He arose slowly and walk-ing across the lodge, seated himself by Hamblin. He was a Piute, a slave of the ISTavajoes, and as they have the unpleasant habit of sometimes killing their interpreters when they don't interpret to suit them, and as what he was about to reveal was not calculated to render us very amiable, I could excuse the tremor that shook him in every limb. " He finally commenced, in a low tone, to speak to the follow-ing effect: The Navajoes believed that all Hamblin had said the night before was a lie, that they thought he was one of the parties to the killing, and with the exception of three, our host and two others of the old Indians, all had given'. their voice for death. " Most of them were of the opinion that it was best not to kill my brother and myself, as we were ' Americans,' but to make us witness the torture of Hamblin, and then send us back on foot. |
