Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

All these things Jack saw, but did not very well comprehend. Meantime they had crossed the circle and approached a large lodge, near which two women were busy, with whom were two or three little children, and by the lodge stood an old horse with a travois, on which there was a load of wet and dripping wood. The woman Jack was following called in shrill tones to the others, and as Jack stopped, they hurried up to him, lifted the girl from his horse, and took her into the lodge. The woman motioned for him to dismount, and at the same moment the pack horses came up, driven by Hugh.

Jack was glad to get his feet on the ground once more, and to stamp about a little to get warm. Hugh said to him, "Go inside, if you like, son, and get close to the fire; you must be cold."

"No," said Jack, "I'll help you unpack first. I'll get warm sooner if I'm working."

"I believe you will," said Hugh; "that's pretty good sense. It won't take us long to get these packs off." Nor did it. In a very few minutes the horses' loads were piled up outside the lodge door, the pack horses turned loose, and the saddle horses tied to pins driven in the ground near the lodge. Then Hugh and Jack went inside.

There was a bright, warm fire there, evidently just built up, and Jack, who in entering had hit his head against the top of the doorway, was about to step up to it and warm his hands, when Hugh laid his hand on his shoulder and guided him to the right as they went in, and pressed him to the ground, and both sat down near the door. The woman spoke up quickly, in a voice as if she were finding fault, and motioned toward the back of the lodge, and Hugh rose and led Jack around, almost opposite the door, where they again sat down. "Now, son," said Hugh, "take off your shoes and all your outside things, and try to get dry. After we've set here a minute or two, maybe I'll go out and open one of the packs, and see if I can get you some dry clothes." He spoke to the woman for a moment, and then turning to Jack, said, "She says she wants us to stop here until her husband gets back. He and John Monroe went off early this morning, up the creek, to try to get some deer skins. Pretty soon now they'll be back. She says that even if you do go to stop with John Monroe, she wants you to sleep to-night in this lodge, so that her husband can see you and talk to you. She says he will not forget that you pulled his little girl out of the water. She thinks you are a good boy. You acted quick. When you grow up you will be a good man and brave. If you go to war you will have good luck."

Jack felt rather embarrassed. "Do you mean to say that she said all those things about me?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just what she said."

"Well," said Jack, "of course I'm awful glad I pulled the little girl out of the water, but anybody else would have done it just the same, and if I hadn't, why you were right there and would have done it, I expect, a good deal quicker than I did."

"Well," said Hugh, "maybe I might, but you're the one that did it, that makes the difference, and I expect that woman, and her man, too, will be mighty grateful to you. What is more, they'll talk about it all through the camp, and you'll see that everybody here will have a good word and a pleasant smile for you to-morrow."

Jack had taken off most of his wet things, and had thrown them on the ground beside him, and now the woman came over to where he was, holding a great, soft buffalo robe, which, with a laugh, she threw around him, almost covering him up. Then she went back, and in a moment threw across the lodge to him a pair of boy's moccasins and a pair of leggings. Then she went out of the lodge.