The day was very warm, so supper was prepared outside the tepee, North Eagle showing Tony how to build a fire in a prairie wind, lee of the tepee, and midway between two upright poles supporting a cross-bar from which the kettles hung.  Boiled beef, strong black tea, and bannock, were the main foods, but out of compliment to their visitor, they fried a quantity of delicious mushrooms, and, although the Blackfeet seldom eat them, Tony fairly devoured several helpings.  After supper North Eagle took him again into the tepee, and showed him all the wonderful buckskin garments and ornaments.  Tony was speechless with the delight of it all, and even begrudged the hours wherein he must sleep; but the unusual length of the ride, the clear air, and the hearty supper he had eaten, all began to tell on his excitement, and he was quite ready to “turn in” with the others shortly after sunset.

“Turning in” meant undressing, folding a Hudson’s Bay blanket about him, and lying near the open flap of the tepee, on a heap of wolf skins as soft as feathers and as silvery as a cloud.

Night crept up over the prairie like a grey veil, and the late moon, rising, touched the far level wastes with a pale radiance.  Through the open flap of the tepee Tony watched it—­the majestic loneliness and isolation, the hushed silence of this prairie world were very marvellous—­and he loved it almost as if it were his birthright, instead of the heritage of the Blackfoot boy sleeping beside him.  Then across the white night came the cry of a wandering coyote, and once the whirr of many wings swept overhead.  Then his wolfskin couch grew very soft and warm, the night airs very gentle, the silence very drowsy, and Tony slept.

It was daylight.  Something had wakened him abruptly.  Instantly all his faculties were alert, yet oddly enough he seemed held rigid and speechless.  He wanted to cry out with fear, he knew not of what, and the next moment a lithe red body was flung across his, and his hand was imprisoned in strong, clinging fingers.  There was a brief struggle, a torrent of words he did not understand, a woman’s frightened voice.  Then the lithe red body, North Eagle’s body, lifted itself, and Tony struggled up, white, scared, and bewildered.  The Blackfoot boy was crouching at his elbow, and some terrible thing was winding and lashing itself about his thin dark wrist and arm.  It seemed a lifetime that Tony’s staring eyes were riveted on the horror of the thing but it really was all over in a moment, and the Indian had choked a brutal rattlesnake, then flung it at his feet.  No one spoke for a full minute, then North Eagle said, very quietly, “He curl one foot from your right hand, he lift his head to strike.  I wake—­I catch him just below his head—­he is dead.”

Again there was silence.  Then North Eagle’s mother came slowly, placed one hand on her son’s shoulder, the other on Tony’s, and looking down at the dead reptile, shook her head meaningly.  And Tony, still sitting on the wolf skins, stretched out his arms and clasped them about North Eagle’s knees.