avals, but Two Arrows knew of no other
country than his own, the one his band of Nez Perces had hunted and
feasted and starved in.

It was a great, deep, grassy, well-wooded, well-watered valley, the very
home of game and a sure promise of all comfort to a hunter. How far it
might reach to the westward no eye could tell, for the prospect was
bounded by other mountains, and there were plain tokens that a
considerable stream ran through the middle of it.

"Much water, perhaps," said Two Arrows. "Must go somewhere. Find out
some day."

The idea of a river suggested the other idea that it could be followed
until an ambitious boy could ascertain where it went to. All that was
swallowed up at once by the immediate desire to get down upon that green
grass and among those trees. One-eye had seen the valley, but was
inclined to stick pretty closely at the side of his master. There were
only two of them, and they might need each other's help at any moment.

The road tramped by the bison herds did not wind much, as it went on
down towards the level ground, but it lazily picked out the easiest
slopes and turned the corners of the great rocks on good curves. As Two
Arrows and his faithful companion wound around one of these curves,
almost at the bottom of the long descent, they suddenly came upon a
discovery that startled them. Even the dog pricked up his ears and began
to growl, and Two Arrows stepped quickly back behind the rock. He had
never been in a white man's village, but he had seen a fort and a few
houses around it, and he had seen the houses of Mexican Indians and some
others, built of "adobe" or sunburnt brick. He was not, therefore, a
judge of such matters, and what he saw filled him with astonishment. He
was not exactly alarmed, for a house could not chase him, but he
exclaimed,

"Pale-face lodge. Good many. Very bad. What can he do now?"

He peered silently forth for several minutes, but not a human being was
in sight. There were no signs of life, no curling smoke, no barking
dogs, no cattle, nothing but scattered structures of stone. These must
have been put there by somebody, but it began to look as if whoever had
built them had gone to some other hunting-ground.

Two Arrows noted everything with eyes that grew more brilliant in their
swift and searching glances. There could hardly be any danger in such a
solitude as that, but the occasion required caution, and the young
"brave" made his advances from cover t