Slipping out at a small postern gate, he let himself down into the trench unseen by the Sioux, and climbing up the opposite bank, the next instant was bounding down the slope of the hill, waving his flag. In a few minutes he had reached the chief who had led the assailants. He uttered a few words, and the next moment the savage warrior stood grasping his hands and gazing in his countenance.
“My second father, though your child has long been away from you, he has not forgotten you,” he exclaimed; “but he would ere this have been in the world of spirits had not the good white chief, commander of yonder fort, saved his life; and you cannot, knowing this, desire to injure his kind friends. No, my father; you and my brothers promised to be the friend of your son’s friends. I knew you even afar off, and my heart yearned towards you, and I felt sure that you would listen to my prayers. You know not the power and generosity of my white friends. Even at this moment their far-reaching guns are pointed towards you, and had they desired to take your life, they would have fired and laid you and many of my brothers low.”
Laurence continued for some minutes in the same strain. The chief seemed troubled. He was unwilling to lose the booty he expected to find in the fort, at the same time that he remembered his promise to his adopted son, and was struck also by what he had said about his white friends.
Laurence thus went on eloquently to plead his cause; at the same time, he took care not to acknowledge how unable the garrison were to hold out much longer.
“You have conquered, my son,” exclaimed the chief. “I will speak to your brothers; your friends should be our friends. Had blood been shed, our people would have been unwilling to listen to my counsels; but now all will be well. Show the flag you carry, that no one may fire at us as we retire. We will return to our camp, and you will there see many who will welcome you joyfully again among them.”
Laurence, rejoiced at the success of his mission, stood waving his flag, while the Sioux retired from around the fort. He then quickly followed, and overtook the chief. Inquiries were made for his father, who had been received into the tribe and long resided among them. Laurence replied that he hoped he would soon return, and that he was sure he would be well pleased to hear that they had refrained from injuring his white friends.
On reaching the camp, Laurence was received with warm greetings from his red-skinned brothers and sisters, for he was looked on as a brother by all the tribe. He soon found his way to a lodge in which was seated an old woman with shrivelled features, her long white locks hanging down over her skeleton-like shoulders. No sooner did she see him than, uttering a wild shriek of delight, she seized him in her withered arms, and pressed him to her heart.
“My child!” she exclaimed; “and you at length have come back to visit the mother who has been yearning for long years to see you; and you have not forgotten her?”
“No, indeed,” answered Laurence; “from the day my white father took me away I have ever thought of you, and recollected the happy times I passed under your care.”
“You have come, then, once more to be a brother of our people!” exclaimed his old nurse. “You will not go away again; but you will stay and live in our lodges, and grow up and become a brave hunter of the buffalo and moose, and gladden the eyes of one who loves you better than any white mother.”