“It will please him greatly,” said Mrs. Sandy, proudly, and when the girls saw how her face brightened at his name, they began to understand somewhat, one very good reason why Diantha Calvert had come out West to be a rancher’s wife.
There were so many things to see that day, the time passed before they realized it. Ted and Sue rambled around with the Chief, as they called him, at his heels from the corral to the wagon sheds and back again, while the other girls stayed with Mrs. Sandy, and listened as she told stories of the early days.
“Were you never afraid at all?” asked Ruth.
“Dear, what would you think of an Old Dominion girl who dared to be afraid? Besides, the Indians trusted Sandy. He never betrayed their confidence, nor misled them. Many times he acted as peacemaker between them and the army, trying to make the way free from war for them, and trying to make them understand how resistless the march of progress was. Many of the settlers had been murdered, and their places burned, but we were not molested, even by the Sioux. I can remember one day, I was alone here. Sandy had been south at Fort Washakie for several weeks. It was early spring, and the kitchen door was open. I was making bread, I know, and had just opened the oven door to take out the loaves when I heard a step on the doorsill, and saw a shadow on the floor.”
“Indians?” exclaimed Polly.
“Yes. It was an Indian. He stood looking around for a minute, and I didn’t act frightened at all. I thought he might have a message from Sandy for me. Then he grunted, and held out his hand for the bread. There were about eight loaves in all. I held them out to him, and he took every single one. And he gave me this in exchange.”
She went over to an old dresser and took from a drawer a belt, beaded richly, with elk teeth dangling in short fringes from it.
“Isn’t it lovely,” the girls cried. “Why did he do it?”
“Because he was hungry, I think. We never knew. But if I had refused him the bread, or cried out, or done anything that was not friendly, he might have killed me. I don’t know, I may be wrong,” she went on, gently, with a happy, faraway look on her sweet old face, “but I’ve found it a truth, children; if you give kindness, you receive kindness, if you give love, you get love in return, even with savages. It is the brotherliness of humanity that is the most ancient law of all. It is the law of the human pack, as Sandy says.”
“Oh, girls, pack!” exclaimed Polly suddenly. “That makes me think of animals. We’re forgetting about the bones.”