Chapter 13: Horse Thief

After resting for a while, pounding his sore thighs and stretching his arms and legs, Ma Shao rode on Black Blade and returned to the camp with Tiaoti.

Although Hei Feng had not run in a straight line away from the camp before, he had been running for such a long time and the distance was not short. In addition, both the men and the horses had little physical strength at this time, so it would naturally take a lot of time to return.

By the time the two approached the camp, it was already late at night.

The two chatted casually.

"Tiaoti, where did you get these two feathers?" Ma Shao noticed the two feathers on Tiaoti's head.

Contrary to the impression of some people, including him in his previous life, not all Indians wear a large hat woven with feathers. Some tribes do not have this thing at all, and not everyone in the tribe that has this tradition is qualified to wear it.

Feathers symbolize merit, and most people can only obtain two or three feathers to wear on their heads in their entire lives.

Only a few highly respected and meritorious people, because they have obtained too many feathers, will have them woven into war crowns, thus becoming the classic image of Indian warriors in people's impression.

As for the battle crowns with a lot of feathers, all dragging on the ground, in today's Ma Shao's opinion, they are actually similar to Brezhnev's style.

In addition, the materials of the war crown are not all eagle feathers. Sometimes they just find some similar bird feathers and use them together, which is similar to "adding a tail to a dog".

"One from my horse-breeding, and one from the fighting," said Jumping Hoof.

"Whose fight?"

"Of course our greatest enemy, the Arapaho," Hopping Hoof blurted out.

Ma Shao couldn't help but frown after hearing this: "The Arapaho are indeed our biggest enemy, but I think the white man is a greater threat."

He was disgusted by the complex and fierce internal conflicts between the tribes. Sometimes some tribes would even join forces with white people to stab other tribes. If it weren't for this, if the Indians could unite, why would they be beaten to this point by the white people?

Hoops disagreed: "If I remember correctly, your father was killed by the Arapaho."

"Yes, but my mother died at the hands of white people," said Ma Shao.

"So you love your mother more?" asked Hoophoof.

"..." Ma Shao paused, "This has nothing to do with personal hatred. The white people are more united than us, and they have a more advanced civilization. If we don't unite, all tribes will be driven into the barren reservations."

"Etiquette? The white people are burning, killing and looting, how can that be considered etiquette!" Tiaoti said, with some anger in his voice.

Ma Shao sighed. He did not find a suitable Apache word to translate "civilization", but used a word that was very close to the concept of "etiquette". The Indians did not understand the connotation of the civilization he was talking about, and there seemed to be no corresponding word in their language.

The atmosphere was a bit awkward, and the two walked forward in silence for a while.

"Wait." Ma Shao suddenly said in a low voice vigilantly, asking Hei Feng to stop, while his eyes were fixed on somewhere not far away.

Tiaoti also stopped alertly and looked in the direction he was looking.

Thanks to a religious custom of eating raw bison livers, the Sleeping Bear clan does not suffer from night blindness, and Ma Shao, who has a healthy diet, certainly does not suffer from it either.

So in the darkness of the night, the two of them quickly noticed something. It turned out to be a dark shadow sneaking among the horses.

"Someone is stealing horses!" As an excellent horse breeder, Tiaoti immediately understood what the figure was doing and became furious.

Then he took out the battle axe from his waist and rushed towards the black shadow with a roar: "Dare to steal my horse, die!"

The horses quickly made way for him to pass, and Ma Shao took out his battle axe and followed closely.

Soon the two men met a horse thief who was trying to escape.

There were also two people on the other side, Indians from other tribes. Their situation was obviously not good. After all, this place was right next to the camp where the Sleeping Bear people lived. If they did not escape in time, they would surely die without a burial place.

With his excellent eyesight, Ma Shao became the first person on both sides to see the other side's movements clearly.

Seeing that one of the horse thieves was also holding a tomahawk and ready to throw it, he acted decisively, took the initiative, and threw his own tomahawk backhand.

"Ah!" With a scream, the battle axe hit the horse thief's chest.

In fact, Ma Shao's axe missed the target and his arm was sore, otherwise this axe would have been able to cut the opponent's head off.

The other horse thief was suddenly terrified. He didn't even think of fighting back and turned around to run away. However, he was caught up by Tiaoti and had his arm chopped off with an axe.

Naturally, there was another scream.

Of course, the tribesmen had heard the noise a long time ago. The first one to rush over was a tall and thin young man on horseback, looking anxious: "Shaozi, Tiaoti, you are back? What was that sound just now?"

Jumping Hoof pointed at the two horse thieves on the ground, one dead and one injured: "Blind Shot, how did you watch the horses when I was away? These two horse thieves almost succeeded."

Blind Shooter looked ashamed: "I'm sorry, it's my fault."

Soon, more than a dozen tribesmen arrived, including the chief and the shaman.

They quickly understood the situation. The chief looked at the two horse thieves, one dead and one injured, and said, "Stone Crow, treat the wound of the injured one and ask about his identity."

Stone Crow nodded and left with the injured horse thief.

Then the chief looked at Ma Shao and smiled: "Whistle, you killed an enemy, the clan will give you an eagle feather as a reward."

"Thank you, Chief." Ma Shao was a little surprised and then thanked him.

The old chief looked at Blind Shot again, his face serious: "Blind Shot, this is your dereliction of duty. The clan will deprive you of one of your eagle feathers as punishment for your dereliction of duty."

Blind Shot opened his mouth to argue, but lowered his head and said dejectedly, "Yes, Chief."

Ma Shao hesitated for a moment, then said, "Chief, this is all because of me. If I hadn't trained the horse to run out of the camp, Tiaoti wouldn't have left the herd. And as the best horse breeder, he would definitely not let the horse thief get close."

"So, the responsibility is mine. Just deprive me of my eagle feathers. After all, Blind Shooter is just temporarily taking care of the horses. He can't be compared with Jumping Hoof. It's normal for him to lack experience."

After hearing what he said, Blindshot immediately showed a look of gratitude, and Tiaoti's expression also seemed faintly smug.

The old chief also thought it made sense. He thought about it and finally nodded: "That's right. In that case, let's cancel out the reward and punishment just now."

"Let's go check on the horse thief. He's seriously injured and might die," someone said.

Everyone then came to where the stone crow was, and next to it lay the injured horse thief.

"Do you know his identity?"

Stone Crow was still bandaging the horse thief's wound, but he nodded: "He is a Comanche, from the Twin Wolf Clan, not far southwest of us."

"Comanche!"