José — page 259: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

252 JOSE, already known in minute details, and seemed to have inspired them with the genuine confidence. The red men had better facilities than was dreamed of atthe fort. I requested to speak with achief. I told him he might prepare his tribe for a terrible visitation. I claimed to be gifted by nature with power to feel the approach of the evil spiri , and consequently felt convinced that the murder of the three innocent victims would be terribly avenged upon the entire tribe. Iintended leaving in order to escape the speedy doom. ‘The Indians are a nation of children where they have no grounds to suspect the truth of a prophecy, and at first my loudly uttered words acted like a stunning blow upon them. Groups were formed, and soon I per- ceived that some kind of a question had been raised that was causing a great deal of fierce dispute. Suddenly one of the oldest warriors approached me, his eyes fairly sparkling with rage, and asked me if I thought I could palliate the evil spirit if the mur- derers of the whites were delivered to the fort. I quickly saw how matters stood. Their ever active sense of suspicion had made them conceive the idea that I might after all be in collusion with the com- mandant and was trying to effect the delivery of the offenders by threats; I also felt convinced from the disturbed looks of the Indian before me that if he were not actually one of the murderers himself he certainly was one of their nearest relatives. I knew him and also the spot where the wigwams of that part of the tribe were located that was in his charge; but I guarded my face and kept my thoughts to myself. “Will it undo the crime if the offenders are re- signed to their enemy, or will that recall the dead?’ EOomichbooks (E(e) m