There was a moment's pause, and presently Joe burst out, and said:
"Say, don't you want to go off on the warpath with some young men? There's a war party going to start out pretty soon, and the young men have asked me to go along, and the leader said he'd like to have you go too. He didn't say that until after you had counted your coup."
"Jerusalem," said Jack, "I'd like that. That would be fun," and he looked at Joe with his face beaming with excitement. Suddenly, his look changed, and he said:
"But no, I could not go anyhow. Hugh would never be willing for me to go on a trip like that, and I wouldn't sneak off without speaking to him about it.
"You see, Joe," he went on, "when I came up here, I promised my uncle that I would listen to Hugh about everything, and would take his advice always. It wouldn't be square either to Hugh or to my uncle if I didn't do as I promised I would. Besides that Hugh has been mighty good to me. He has helped me a whole lot and pretty much everything I wanted to do he's said I could. Look at his going off with us the other day when we went to hunt antelope. I don't expect that there was much fun for him in that. I think he went because he thought I wanted to go and wanted to give me pleasure. It wouldn't be the square thing for me to go back on Hugh that way.
"He'd be mighty uneasy all the time I'd be gone. Likely he'd be hunting for me, and what would be lots of fun for me would be giving him a mighty bad time. Besides, suppose anything should happen to me, and I should get hurt or killed, he'd feel mighty mean going back to my uncle and telling him what had happened."
"Well," said Joe, "I guess what you say is right. It would be mean to make White Bull feel that way. I'd like to have you come. We could go and get a lot of horses and come back and people would say we had done well. I wish you could go, but you have got to do what you think is good."
Jack felt badly. He could think of nothing that would be so much fun as to go off with these young men and make a long journey, and take some horses from the enemy's camp and then return and be praised by all the people, but he knew as well as he knew anything that Hugh would never consent to his going, and he felt that it was impossible to break faith, even for so great a pleasure. He remembered all that Hugh had done for him, and especially how he saved his life at the Musselshell River, and he knew well that the more he thought about it the more firm would be his resolve not to give Hugh this great anxiety.
They talked about it a little longer and at last Joe got up to go and Jack went into the lodge. There he found John Monroe's woman cooking supper, and spoke to her, thanking her for the gift of the horse made to him that afternoon.