Peter, partly roused from the lethargy which was creeping over him, tried to lift Dick from the drifts, but was too weak. So he quietly pulled off his own blanket, laid it over the English boy, and then crouched down with his back to the worst of the wind, and waited stoically—waited for death, which was all he looked for. He thought of it quite calmly; but then through all his stormy life the gates of the Happy Hunting-Grounds had never been far away. There was something very pathetic in that little crouching brown figure waiting so gravely and patiently for the end.
The wind blew the snow into little ridges on his long black hair, and then blew it off again. The pony came close to him with drooping head, as if for company; but by then the Indian was too far gone to heed anything, though still he crooned little snatches of his desolate song, as was right and fitting.
Presently he too fell softly sideways into the snow as a tired child falls. His last distinct thought was of the great broad woods through which they had passed, and of the warm summer sun upon the fair, green world.
Just then the pony lifted its lean head, fringed over with the long ragged mane, and pointing its nose to the blast, neighed shrilly, piercingly, as only an Indian pony can neigh. But neither Dick nor Peter Many-Names heard it.
That neigh was answered by a dozen or more. But so strongly blew the irregular winds that only faint echoes of the shrill clamour were to be heard. It proceeded from the very heart of an unusually large bluff of willows upon the bank of a river. There was an open space in the middle of this thick growth of stunted trees, which was occupied by several horses and a cluster of tepees. A band of Indians were very comfortably weathering the unexpected storm in this manner, little more than a few yards distant from the spot where Dick and Peter Many-Names had been overcome.
When the pony neighed, no echo of the sound reached the ears of the people in the tepees; but the loud whinnyings of their own horses at last aroused Man-afraid-of-a-Bear, who had been sleeping the sleep of the just after a full meal, and he therefore went cautiously forth to investigate.
He noticed with satisfaction that the blizzard showed signs of abating, and he also noticed that another pony had been added to their little herd; so he carefully followed that pony's track for a few yards, and came upon Dick and Peter Many-Names. He had looked for something of the kind, being accustomed to the chances of the plains.
The Red Man is hospitable, but suspicious. However, there was nothing about the half-frozen and unconscious pair that might have led Man-afraid-of-a-Bear to suppose that they were enemies. Besides, their advent had added a very fine pony to the wealth of the tribe; so, without much more ado, he dragged them one after the other to the tepees.
His haste was probably their salvation. Heroic and weird remedies were applied to ward off frost-bite, and after a time Peter Many-Names recovered sufficiently to eat a hearty meal.
But it was days before the grip of the frost loosened from Dick's brain. An old woman had taken a queer fancy to the white boy, and she nursed him patiently and fed him well long after the great storm had passed, and long after Peter had begun to do his share of the hunting and other tasks which fell to the men. Day after day passed, and still Dick lay helpless on the pile of skins in the dusky tepee, waited on by the grim, silent old squaw, and knowing nothing of his surroundings. He fancied the Indian woman was Stephanie, and kept calling out to her and begging her to forgive him. "For indeed, Steenie, I 'm sorry," he would cry; "and after this I will be different, dear, and try and make it up to you. I was selfish and did not think, but I loved you all the time. I never forgot you. Forgive me, Stephanie! Stephanie, Stephanie!" And so it went on, until, exhaustion brought quiet.