Matthews put a finger to his lips. "You will free my land," he said.
"When the night comes?" whispered Lame Foot. They pressed about Matthews, taking his hands.
"When the night comes," he answered, "you will know by a sign. Let a warrior keep watch. For it shall come when the moon dies. It shall be the call of a mourning dove."
CHAPTER XXIX
LOUNSBURY'S RETURN
Bismarck nearing at last! Since dawn, Lounsbury's head had been poked from a window of the forward car. Now, he followed it with a wedge of shoulder, and muttered a fervent "Thank God!" His face was blackened by the breath of the engine, his hair was roughed by the tugging wind. So that he bore not a trace of the past month's careful grooming. Outside of Chicago, he had shed his Eastern garb for blue flannel shirt, dark breeches, and tall boots. Again he was a frontiersman.
A brakeman entered to call out the final stop. Cramped bulks, here and there, slowly unwound their sleepy lengths and gazed around. A slim recruit in a front seat, who was outward-bound to fight Indians, wakened with a protesting oath. Other occupants of the car grudgingly put away their card packs, but cheerfully clapped on their hats. A long, hot journey was done.
But Lounsbury, when he drew in his head and shoulder, delayed his preparations to alight. He reached down to a boot-leg and fished out a letter, one paragraph of which he carefully re-read.