a white boy
with his first standing-collar, he could not have been more particular,
and every other boy in camp had something to say to the others about the
fit of that vermilion.

It was a day of drying and smoking meat, and of eating as much as the
older men permitted, and everybody wore an aspect of extreme good-humor
except One-eye and his master. The dog and the boy alike kept away from
the camp-fires and from all grown-up Indians. Towards the middle of the
afternoon, Na-tee-kah slipped quietly out at the upper end of the camp,
carrying her own buckskin sack nearly full of something, and nobody
thought of asking her what there might be in it. She had not been gone
many minutes before anybody loafing at that end of the camp might have
seen her brother was following her. He had been standing near the spring
for some time, in full rig, for the other boys to admire him, and now he
walked dignifiedly away as if he were weary of being looked at. Half a
mile farther up the rugged valley he caught up with Na-tee-kah, and she
returned to camp without her bead-worked sack. There was nothing at all
noticeable in the whole affair, unless some suspicious person had been
closely watching them. It was after sunset before there was any special
inquiry for Two Arrows, and it was dark before Na-tee-kah expressed her
belief that he had "gone hunt." She replied freely to every question
asked her, well knowing that there would be no pursuit, but she was more
than a little relieved when the old chief, instead of getting angry
about it, swelled up proudly and remarked,

"Two Arrows! young brave. All like father, some day. Kill more buffalo."

Then Na-tee-kah felt courage to speak about the trail and her brother's
reasoning as to where it might lead to. She had her ears boxed for that,
as it had a sound of giving advice to her elders, but it was not long
before her father gravely informed a circle of the warriors and braves
that the path pointed out by the buffalo cow was the one by which they
must seek for more like her. It was very easy to convince them that they
could do nothing upon the dry, sunburnt plains, or by staying to starve
again in that camp. The objection made by Big Tongue that nobody knew
where that old trail might carry them was met by Long Bear conclusively.
He picked up a dry pony-bone that lay on the ground and held it out to
Big Tongue.

"All other trail go this way. Know all about it. Been there."

It was enough