IX
Heart-Law
The band of Indians in which Esther Morse was a prisoner, led by Black Eagle, was that portion of the great tribe of Dacotahs or Sioux which the white population of the frontiers called the Broad People, to distinguish them from the Lake People, another section of the same tribe who lived in villages on the shore of Spirit Lake. - The former (led by Black Eagle) were all thieves, plunderers and murderers; the latter were quite gentle and quiet.
Black Eagle had hidden all his maneuvers so well that no one had even suspected them; they expected to get their hands on the Mormons, on Miles Morse's caravan, but they didn't know exactly when and how things would be done.
In uttering their war cry, they had thought to draw the Mormon chief to their mercy, and to ransom him withou
