"What is it?" asked the boy, indicating the cooking.
"Prairie chicken," smiled the Indian. "I shoot while you sleep."
So that was the bursting of the scarlet bud!
"Very good chicken," continued the Indian. "Very fat—good for eat, good soup, both."
So they made their supper off the tender stew, and soaked some hardtack in the soup. It seemed to Jerry a royal meal, and he made up his mind that, when he arrived home, he would get his mother to stew a prairie hen in the teapot some day; it tasted so much better than anything he had ever eaten before.
The sun had set, and the long, long twilight of the north was gathering. Five Feathers built up the fire, for the prairie night brings a chill, even in June.
"Did you see them again, the red flowers, while you slept?" he asked the boy.
"Yes; fields of them," replied Jerry. Then added, "Why?"
"It is good," said the Indian. "Very good. You will now have what we call 'The Scarlet Eye.'"
"What's that?" asked Jerry, half frightened.