"Will you swear it?"
"On my elk's tooth."
Then they each took the elk's tooth in his hand and made a vow that whether Winnedumah came down from his rock, or whether the Shoshones found them, come what would, they would stand together. Then they were comforted, and lay down, holding each other's hands.
"I hear some one walking," said Walter.
"It is the wind among the pines," said Joe.
A twig snapped. "What is that?" said the one boy.
"It is a fox or a coyote passing," said the other, but he knew better. They lay still, scarcely breathing, and throbbed with fear. They felt a sense of a presence approaching in the night, the whisper of a moccasin on the gravelly soil, the swish of displaced bushes springing back to place. They saw a bulk shape itself out of the dark; it came and stood over them, and they saw that it was an Indian looking larger in the gloom. He spoke to them, and whether he spoke in a strange tongue, or they were too frightened to understand, they could not tell.
"Do not kill us!" cried Walter, but the Indian boy made no sound. The man took Walter by the shoulders and lifted him up.
"We are brothers," said Joe; "we have sworn it."