Two Arrows was treated to an excellent breakfast the morning after his capture. He also saw a white man eat with a knife and fork, and had all the sugar he wanted for the first time. It was a wonderful morning, and a very brilliant pair of eyes were drinking in its marvels greedily.

Rifles, pistols, and all that sort of thing were familiar enough to the young Nez PercÉ, but he saw new patterns of them and gained tremendous notions of the wealth and skill of the pale-faces who could make such weapons.

"Father," said Sile, "I wish he could read. He's a bright fellow."

"Show him everything you have with a picture in it."

There was no fear that Two Arrows would try to run away after that process began. The printed matter of any sort did not convey to him an idea; it was so much mud; it meant nothing whatever. The pictures were another thing, and Sile had provided himself well with illustrated reading. Two Arrows almost gave up the sullen pride that refused to be astonished, and Sile began to understand "sign language." At all events he nearly twisted himself out of shape in an effort to explain to his captive the nature of ships, cannon, camels, and steam-engines. He felt as if he were a sort of missionary. At last Judge Parks himself handed Two Arrows a photograph of an Indian chief, given him at one of the frontier agencies a few weeks before.

"Ugh! Pawnee!" said Two Arrows.

"I told you so," exclaimed Yellow Pine. "If you showed him dogerrytypes of every tribe there is, he'd name 'em at sight. Jedge, it's about time we set out. I've got a mount ready for him."

Jonas more fully explained to Two Arrows that a visit of peace was planned, and that he was to be marched home again, but the face of the young Indian clouded. That was the one thing he stood in mortal dread of. He thought of the jeers and derision sure to greet him from all other Nez PercÉ boys when they should see him come home without any glory, and he hung back.

"Mount now," shouted Yellow Pine, with a motion towards the animal he had selected.

A horse! To ride back, instead of returning tired and on foot. That was quite another matter.

"Whoop!" he could not have restrained that yell of relief, and in an instant he was in the saddle. He had been used to riding a barebacked pony, and that made his present outfit the more splendid. All his vanity and ambition came pouring back upon him, and he almost felt as if he had captured that squad of pale-faces and was bringing them in as prisoners. He dashed forward at once, with Sile on one side, Yellow Pine on the other, and the rest following, except a camp-guard of two miners.

Less than an hour later all the Nez PercÉ band came out under the trees to see what was coming.

"Two Arrows!" almost breathlessly exclaimed Na-tee-kah. "Caught some pale-faces this time."

"Got horse," said Ha-ha-pah-no.

Long Bear and his warriors did not say a word, for they were all but dumb with astonishment from the moment that they recognized the returning wanderer. What would not that remarkable boy do next? Had he killed anybody? Had he really stolen all those white men, or had they stolen him? There he was, anyway, and in a few moments more Yellow Pine and Judge Parks had said "How?" to Long Bear and his best men. Indian manners required that Two Arrows should be silent before his elders until spoken to, but Long Bear almost instantly inquired,

"Where find boy?"

"In camp," said Yellow Pine. "Try to steal horse. Too many pale-face. Catch him. All safe. Big thief some day. Boy now."

All of Two Arrows's dream of glory went out of sight before the grim smiles with which the Nez PercÉ warriors heard that explanation. They perfectly understood the matter, and that the pale-faces before them wished to be good friends. On their part, they were a good deal more than willing, for they had much to gain from peace and very little from war with mounted riflemen.

"Prisoner?" groaned Na-tee-kah.

"Boy all right," grumbled Ha-ha-pah-no, indignantly. "Find pale-face camp anyhow. Go right in. Old brave all asleep. Never find anything. Big chief by-and-by."

There was some truth in that view of the matter, and Long Bear made a remark that had a little the same sound. At all events Two Arrows was permitted to dismount and walk away, while the conference with his captors went on. In ten seconds he was exhibiting his little hand-mirror to Na-tee-kah and a crowd of other young people, and found his importance coming back to him. None of them had ever ventured to creep, all alone, into a white man's corral. Not a boy or girl among them had such a treasure as the mirror. He had made friends with the pale-faces, at all events. In fact, his standing in that community was rising with tremendous rapidity, until somehow or other the story of his wrestling match with Sile Parks began to be whispered around, and it became necessary for Two Arrows to point at Yellow Pine as the great brave who had really pinioned him. There was not a Nez PercÉ in the band, old or young, who felt any longing for a grapple with the sinewy, big-boned old miner and all would have been right but for the fact that Two Arrows had not at once escaped from Sile.

A good understanding was easily established between the miners and the red men, and it was not long before Sile was off his horse and was going around among the young people. He used his eyes as busily as Two Arrows had done, but it is to be doubted if he saw as much, even in what there was to see. It was not long before Na-tee-kah had as good a looking-glass as her brother, and a general distribution of small presents sealed the arrangement that the miners were not to be plundered by that particular band.

"Now, jedge," said Yellow Pine at last, "it's time we moved. S'pose we fetch along that young cub and his sister. Company for Sile. Make the old chief feel fine."

Long Bear gave several grunts of assent when spoken to, and once more Two Arrows felt as if he were growing very fast indeed.

"We'll go back and move the wagons," said Pine to Sile. "You and your young redskin can scout on down the valley. You've got your directions 'bout finding us. Don't go too fast nor too far. The Indian'll smell any danger long before you will. He won't be roped in by anybody in broad daylight, I can tell ye."

He did not look like it as he rode proudly away from the village. Jonas had mounted Na-tee-kah behind him, but Ha-ha-pah-no was to follow the wagons on foot, that the chief's daughter might have somebody to superintend her visit. When Ha-ha-pah-no set out in her turn nearly half the village went with her uninvited, and it took all the authority of Long Bear to keep the other half from keeping them company.

"Come," said Two Arrows to Sile, after a few minutes of silent riding. "We go. Ugh! Shoot a heap."

He had picked up more English words, somehow or other, than he had at first acknowledged, but Sile found it needful to work the sign language pretty industriously for all that.

Na-tee-kah had spent her life in the close retirement of an Indian village. She had been housed up among plains and mountains from all the world, and knew nothing about it. She had lived in a narrower prison than the smallest country village in all the East. The idea of visiting a white man's camp and seeing all there was in it made her tremble all over. She knew her father and ever so many others would be there in an hour or so, and that her wonderful brother had gone on a hunt with the son of the pale-face chief, but she was to enter a strange place with only white warriors for company. It was an awful thing to do, and she could not have done it, nor would Long Bear have consented to it, but for something they both saw in the face of old Judge Parks when he patted her on the head and said,

"Be my daughter a little while. Make a white girl of her for a week. Take good care of her."

Red men have keen eyes for character, and Long Bear understood. So did Na-tee-kah, and yet she would have run away and hidden but for her curiosity, stirred up by what Two Arrows had told her of the contents of that camp and its wagons. An offer to a white girl of a trip to Paris might be something like it, but it would not be much more. Her eyes danced and her fingers tingled as they drew near, and yet the only thing she could see was a couple of commonplace tilted wagons and a lot of horses and mules. The moment she was on the ground the old judge came to her assistance.

"Now, Na-tee-kah, I'll show you something. Come this way."

She stood as straight as an arrow and walked along courageously, but it required all her strength of mind and will to do so. She watched him in silence, as he went into and came out of one of those mysterious rolling tents full of all unknown riches.

"There, now. That'll keep you busy while we're getting ready to move."

She held out both her hands, and when Ha-ha-pah-no at last put her own hand upon her shoulder and said "Ugh!" Na-tee-kah started as if she had been waked from a dream. She had been looking at pictures that told her of another world.

"Heap lie," said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Pale-face tell 'em. Make lie about squaw. There!"

It was a picture of several ladies in evening dress, and Na-tee-kah had been looking at it for five minutes. No such woman as those could possibly be, nor could any human beings get themselves up so wonderfully. It was all a lie, and any intelligent squaw could detect the fraud at a glance.

Na-tee-kah drew a long breath that sounded like a sigh, and just then the shout of Yellow Pine announced that all was ready for a move.

"We'll reach that mine to-morrow night, jedge, if we're lively. Everything's goin' prime now."

With or without an invitation the relatives of Na-tee-kah trudged along with the wagons mile after mile, and Long Bear gained an extra pound of tobacco by sticking to Yellow Pine until the train halted at noon.Ha-ha-pah-no scolded Na-tee-kah pretty nearly all the way for not knowing more about pale-faces, but she broke down at the noon camp-fire. She undertook to play cook, and in half a minute Jonas discovered that she did not know how to make coffee.

"Wouldn't you have b'iled a black soup?" he exclaimed.

"Poor old squaw!" said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Know all about him. Drink some once; bitter. Put sweet in. Stir him up, so."

"Ugh!" said Na-tee-kah. "Know so much. Ask Two Arrows when he come."