did the great Company prove
friendly to strangers. The Indian had probably, at some crisis in his
chequered career, come in contact with the authority of the said
Company, which thereafter he regarded with superstitious awe and
veneration.

As they went stealthily on their way, and the miles dropped behind with
the vanishing summer, Peter Many-Names became strangely eager and
excited. Dick did not understand the cause of this excitement or of
the haste that accompanied it. But had he possessed the key to that
savage nature, he would have guessed that it was the nearness of the
prairies which so moved the impassive Indian. As the sea to a
coast-bred man, as the mountains to a hillman, so were the prairies to
Peter Many-Names. They had called him north with a voice that, to his
wild fancy, was almost articulate--insistent, not to be mistaken. He
had been born and bred upon the plains, and now he was returning to
them as a tired child runs to its mother, asking only the presence of
that which he loved.

And by the time that the woods about the distant homestead were lighted
with the purple of the tall wild asters, Dick had had his first sight
of the open prairie. In after days he never found words to describe
that sight. Once having reached the goal of his desire, Peter's hurry
seemed in great measure to evaporate. He was content to see the vast
arch of the pale autumn skies above his head, to feel the keen air in
his face, to travel over those limitless earthen billows, interrupted
only by some bluff of aspens or other soft-wood trees, or by the
forest-growth which fringed the courses of the larger rivers. To him,
life offered nothing better.

Two days after they had definitely left the last of the wooded country
behind them, Dick camped in the shelter of a poplar bluff, while Peter
Many-Names went off a day's journey to the east with the intention of
procuring a couple of ponies. "Saw fire-smoke dark when sun rose," he
declared, "and when fires, there wigwams; where wigwams, there Indians;
where Indians, there ponies. You keep close, and I come back soon."

"But you can't buy ponies, for we 've nothing to give in exchange for
them," Dick protested. However, Peter took no notice of him, and
presently departed, leaving Dick to loneliness, and wonder unsatisfied.

He had leisure to wonder as much as he liked. Peter departed
stealthily, leaving him in charge of all their little stores, with only
the slim