Long Bear and his warriors did not say a word, for they were all but dumb with astonishment from the moment that they recognized the returning wanderer. What would not that remarkable boy do next? Had he killed anybody? Had he really stolen all those white men, or had they stolen him? There he was, anyway, and in a few moments more Yellow Pine and Judge Parks had said "How?" to Long Bear and his best men. Indian manners required that Two Arrows should be silent before his elders until spoken to, but Long Bear almost instantly inquired,
"Where find boy?"
"In camp," said Yellow Pine. "Try to steal horse. Too many pale-face. Catch him. All safe. Big thief some day. Boy now."
All of Two Arrows's dream of glory went out of sight before the grim smiles with which the Nez Percé warriors heard that explanation. They perfectly understood the matter, and that the pale-faces before them wished to be good friends. On their part, they were a good deal more than willing, for they had much to gain from peace and very little from war with mounted riflemen.
"Prisoner?" groaned Na-tee-kah.
"Boy all right," grumbled Ha-ha-pah-no, indignantly. "Find pale-face camp anyhow. Go right in. Old brave all asleep. Never find anything. Big chief by-and-by."
There was some truth in that view of the matter, and Long Bear made a remark that had a little the same sound. At all events Two Arrows was permitted to dismount and walk away, while the conference with his captors went on. In ten seconds he was exhibiting his little hand-mirror to Na-tee-kah and a crowd of other young people, and found his importance coming back to him. None of them had ever ventured to creep, all alone, into a white man's corral. Not a boy or girl among them had such a treasure as the mirror. He had made friends with the pale-faces, at all events. In fact, his standing in that community was rising with tremendous rapidity, until somehow or other the story of his wrestling match with Sile Parks began to be whispered around, and it became necessary for Two Arrows to point at Yellow Pine as the great brave who had really pinioned him. There was not a Nez Percé in the band, old or young, who felt any longing for a grapple with the sinewy, big-boned old miner and all would have been right but for the fact that Two Arrows had not at once escaped from Sile.
NOT A BOY OR GIRL AMONG THEM HAD SUCH A TREASURE AS THAT MIRROR[ToList]