The third day a tiny speck loomed across the rim of sky and prairie.  It grew larger with the hours—­nearer, clearer.  The Indian, shading his keen eyes with his palm, peered over the miles.

“Little brave,” he said, after some silent moments, “they are coming, one day sooner than we hoped.  Your brother, he must have ride like the prairie wind.  Yes, one, no, two buckboards—­Hudson’s Bay horses.  I know them, those horses.”

The boy sat up, staring into the distance.  “I don’t know whether I’m glad or sorry,” he said.  “Father will be driving one buckboard, I know, and I’d like to see him, but, oh, I don’t want to leave you, Five Feathers!”

“You not leave me, not for long,” said the Indian.  “You come back some day, when you great doctor.  Maybe you doctor my own people.  I wait for that time.”

But the buckboards were spinning rapidly nearer, and nearer.  Yes, there was his father, Factor MacIntyre, of the Hudson’s Bay, driving the first rig, but who was that beside him?—­Billy?  No, not Billy.  “Oh, it’s mother!” fairly yelled Jerry.  And the next moment he was in her arms.

“Couldn’t keep her away, simply couldn’t!” stormed Mr. MacIntyre.  “No, sir, she had to come—­one hundred and seventeen miles by the clock!  Couldn’t trust me!  Couldn’t trust Billy!  Just had to come herself!” And the genial Factor stamped around the little camp, wringing Five Feathers’ hand, and watching with anxious look the pale face and thin fingers of his smallest son.

“Oh, father, mother, he’s been so good!” said Jerry, excitedly, nodding towards the Indian.

“Good?  I should think so!” asserted Mr. MacIntyre.  “Why, boy, do you know you would have been lame all your life if it hadn’t been for Five Feathers here?  Best Indian in all the Hudson’s Bay country!”

“Yes, dearie; the best Indian in all the Hudson’s Bay country,” echoed Mrs. MacIntyre, with something like a tear in her voice.

“Bet your boots!  Best Indian in all the Hudson’s Bay country!” re-echoed Billy, who had arrived, driving the other buckboard.  But Five Feathers only sat silent.  Then, looking directly at Billy, he said, “You ride day and night, too.  You nearly kill that horse?”

“Yes, I nearly did,” admitted Billy.

“Good brother you.  You my brother, too,” said the Indian, holding out his hand; and Billy fairly wrung that slender, brown hand—­that hand, small and kind as a woman’s.

* * * * * * * *

This all happened long ago, and last year Jerry MacIntyre graduated from McGill University in Montreal with full honors in medicine.  He had three or four splendid offers to begin his medical career, but he refused them all, smilingly, genially, and to-day he is back there, devoting his life and skill to the tribe of Five Feathers, “best Indian in all the Hudson’s Bay country.”

Sons of Savages