The second day out they saw a great herd of buffalo feeding on the plains. Joe could see that it was hard for Pashepaho to pass them by unmolested.
"Can't we try to get a shot at them?" cried Joe, willing, boy-like, to risk anything for the sake of a stirring chase.
Pashepaho shook his head.
"No shoot," he grunted. "Bring trouble. We no want Sioux come now." Then glancing at the boy, who was still pale from his recent illness, "You no hunt now. Bime-by when you strong me take you big hunt some day."
"Oh, will you, Pashepaho?" cried Joe eagerly. "Hurray! And may Lige come, too? Jeminy, that'd be great. Don't forget, will you?"
"Me no forget," remarked Pashepaho, with a smile that showed how fond he had grown of his young white friend.
On the third day, or as Pashepaho expressed it, "three sleeps from the Pawnee settlement," Joe began to recognize the landscape.
"Oh, I know this road," he cried out excitedly, "we traveled over it when we were coming out! We made our noon camp right over there! Yes, sir, there's the signs of our fire yet! We go straight west from here, don't we?"
Pashepaho looked into the flushed, excited face of his young friend. "We no far from Blue Water now," he said with a smile.
Joe's heart beat hard and high as they came nearer and nearer to the homestead. What should he find when he got there? What might have happened while he had been away?