"I dess my mamma is dere! I knowed you'd tate me bat to my mamma!"
The man and woman were Foster Fairfax and his wife, who had met by accident there in the Wonderland of America. She had told him how little Fay had wandered away and become lost, and both had feared that they would never see their child again.
Their unutterable joy cannot be depicted in words. Frank and Old Rocks were the heroes of the occasion.
"Yer don't want ter give me too much credit fer this yar," said the guide. "I done ther trailin', but this yar tenderfut saved me frum bein' killed twice, an' he's got nerves o' steel. It ain't often I take ter a tenderfut, but I will allow thet this yar chap is a boy ter tie to. Ther babby sticks by him; he has won her heart. Dog my cats ef I blame her either!"
Then the old man told how Frank had saved him from the grizzly, how the boy had been tireless on the trail, how he had not murmured at any hardship, and how he had broken the arm of the Blackfoot Indian who was about to brain the guide.
As a result, Frank found himself regarded with unspeakable admiration by all the tourists, while Foster Fairfax and his wife could not say or do enough to express their feelings.
Frank told them of the death of Preston March, and, later, when Professor Scotch and Barney had been found by Rocks and brought into the party, all visited the spot where the Hermit of Yellowstone Park lay buried beneath tons of earth.
At the mouth of the cave Foster Fairfax caused a cross to be erected, bearing the name of the unfortunate man, the date of his birth and of his death.
Frank remained in the park till he succeeded in photographing some "real wild buffalo," and then he was well satisfied to move on to other fields of adventure.
Half Hand was shot while trying to get away with a stolen horse about a year later.