So, with unusual patience, he set himself to wait for the return of strength and spring; while the old squaw grunted in undisguised admiration of his appetite, which bordered on the voracious.
The weary weeks of cold passed slowly. At the end of March the change came, and the prairies suddenly leapt into life. The skies were softer, and full of great white clouds which sailed grandly before the wind. The long, low earthen billows were covered with grass and all the radiant flowers of spring. Every depression of the soil was a slough full of green water, covered with battalions of mallards and other wild-fowl. The poplars put forth shiny leaves which glittered restlessly in the sunshine, and the meadow-larks filled the whole world with music.
Then Dick spoke to Peter Many-Names. "To-morrow," he said, "we will begin to get ready, and next week we will start south again. I have had enough of your plains."
But Peter Many-Names was quite comfortable, and found many and plausible objections to the idea.
"Very well," said Dick quietly, "you stay here, and I will go alone. Only you must get back my gun for me."
Peter stared. There was a change in his comrade—a change which he could not fathom. But the day on which Dick was to start found Peter ready to start with him. "You my brother," he grunted in explanation, "an' I go with you. You not quite strong yet, an' so you go alone, you get lost or starve or drown or somethin'," which was likely, though Peter might have expressed it in a less uncomplimentary fashion.
"I can go by myself," said Dick, a little indignant, though much relieved that the Indian had elected to go with him. But Peter only grunted again.
"I goin'," he repeated, "come back here in spring—next spring. You come along quick."
Many and ceremonious were the farewells between Peter and his stately savage host. But the old squaw was the only one who grieved for the loss of Dick; she gave him three pairs of delicately embroidered moccasins, and then stood and watched him out of sight with dull tearless sorrow. She had seen so many lads ride away in the distance; and few had ever returned. Dick waved his hand to her several times, but she did not respond; only stood and looked after him with sad, dim old eyes.
The two travellers were accompanied by a crony of Peter's, who was to go with them to the end of the prairie-lands, and then return to the tribe with the three ponies they rode. They proceeded swiftly, and for the most part in silence; for the two Indians were sparing of words, according to their wont. They rode together ahead of Dick; but sometimes Peter fell back and opened a brief conversation. "To-morrow we begin to see woods again," he said once, "prairie soon break up, end. Then come trees, rivers, lakes. Now we see whole sky; then only little bits above leaves. Now we see who comes, miles an' miles away, then we see only grass, leaves, shadows, an' know less." But Dick welcomed the thought that the prairies would soon end.