Mrs. Allan was right—­the Indian boy had risked his life to save her son from danger.  Rattlesnakes were so rare in the Blackfoot country that it gave them all a great shock.  It was almost too tense and terrible a thing to talk much of, and the strain of it relaxed only when the boys were mounted once more, galloping swiftly away toward Gleichen and the train.

But, notwithstanding this fright, Tony left the tepee with the greatest regret.  Before going, North Eagle’s mother presented him with a very beautiful pair of moccasins and a valuable string of elk’s teeth, and North Eagle translated her good-bye words:  “My mother says you will live in her heart; that your hair is very beautiful; that she feels the sun’s heat in her heart for you, because you do not speak loud to her.”

It was a glorious, breezy gallop of ten miles in the early morning, and as they came up the trail Tony could distinguish his mother, already on the watch, waving a welcome as far as her eyes could discern them.  Outside the settlement the boys slackened speed, and talked regretfully of their coming separation.  North Eagle was wearing an extremely handsome buckskin shirt, fringed and richly beaded.  He began unfastening it.  “I give you my shirt,” he said.  “My mother says it is the best she ever made—­it is yours.”

For a second Tony’s thoughts were busy, then, without hesitation, he, too, unfastened his shirt, which luckily was a fine blue silk “soft” one.  “And I give you mine,” he said simply.

Thus did they exchange shirts, and rode up to the station platform, the Indian stripped to the waist, with only a scarlet blanket about his shoulders, and a roll of blue silk under his arm; the Toronto boy with his coat buttoned up to conceal his underwear, and a gorgeous garment of buckskin across his saddle bow.

The greetings and welcomings were many and merry.  Professor and Mrs. Allan were hardly able to take their eyes from their restored son.  But the shadow of the coming good-bye hung above Tony’s face, and he experienced only one great glad moment on the station platform.  It was when Sleeping Thunder came up, and before all the passengers, deliberately took the eagle plume from his hair and slipped it into Tony’s hand.  Then North Eagle spoke:  “My father says you are brave, and must accept the plume of the brave.  His heart turns to you.  You do not speak loud to him.”

“All aboard for Calgary!” came the voice of the train conductor.  For a moment the clinging fingers of the Indian and the white boy met, and some way or other Tony found himself stumbling up the steps into the Pullman, and as the train pulled out towards the foothills he stood on the rear platform watching the little station and the tepees slip away, away, away, conscious of but two things—­that his eyes were fighting bravely to keep a mist from blinding them, and that his hands were holding the eagle plume of Sleeping Thunder.