"Now," he said, "you are one fellowship and one blood, and that is as it should be, for you were both nursed at one breast. See that you keep the vow."
"We will," said the boys solemnly, and they went out into the sunlight very proud of the blood upon their bared arms, holding by each other's hands.
II
When Walter was fifteen his father gave him a rifle, as he had promised, and a word of advice with it.
"Learn to shoot quickly and well," he said, "and never ride out from home without it. No one can tell what this trouble with the Indians may come to in the end."
Walter rode straight to the campoodie. He was never happy in any of his gifts until he had showed them to Joe. There was a group of older men at the camp, quartering a deer which they had brought in. One of them, called Scar-Face, looked at Walter with a leering frown.
"See," he said, "they are arming the very children with guns."
"My father promised it to me many years ago," said Walter. "It is my birthday gift."
He could not explain why, and he grew angry at the man's accusing tone, but after it he did not like showing his present to the Indians.
He called Joe, and they went over to a cave in the black rock where they had kept their boyish treasures and planned their plays since they were children. Joe thought the rifle a beauty, and turned it over admiringly in the shadow of the cave. They tried shooting at a mark, and then decided to go up Oak Creek for a shot at the gray squirrels. There they sighted a band of antelope that led them over a tongue of hills into Little Round Valley, where they found themselves at noon twelve miles from home and very hungry. They had no antelope, but four squirrels and a grouse. The two boys made a fire for cooking in a quiet place by a spring of sweet water.