The child was chewing pemmican now, taken from the haversack of Wild Bill, and the sight of it seemed to soften the old Indian. Buffalo Bill now went outside and with Wild Bill and Skibo began preparing their own evening meal, while Nomad, Cayuse, and the boy kept watch against surprise. Over the fire some of the pemmican was simmered until a sweet, warm broth was made and well seasoned with pepper, which appeals to the Indian taste, and a dipperful taken to the old Indian. As he sipped it the fire died out of his eyes and he said gratefully to the scout: “Long Hair heap kind; old Indian no good: lost um medicine; banished; tribe go away; only papoose left.” “Did your tribe once live here?” “Wuh.” “Do they never come here now?” The old Indian shook his head sadly. “Never look here now. Long Hair no watchum; Sioux no come.” “Why were you banished?” “Lost um medicine; too old hunt; left um die with papoose. Old squaw die, young find um young chief, likeum better, no work for Black Coyote.” It was a tragedy of the children of the plain, but rendered doubly so by the abandonment of this little child to starve when the old Indian should fail to provide food. Buffalo Bill was puzzled. To leave this pair to the fate which must soon overtake them, even if he provided food for the present, was manifestly inhuman. To take them with him to Fort Phil Kearney seemed impossible, owing to the infirm condition of the old man; neither could he bear to separate the pair, each of which was all the other had. “How far to Fort Kearney?” he asked of the Indian. “One sun walk.” “Do they know Black Coyote there?” “Wuh.” “How far to sacred mountain where the moon child lives?” asked the scout abruptly. “What Long Hair know?” asked the Indian, without change of countenance. “I know she is there; I have seen her and talked with her--what does Black Coyote know?” “Know heap: dare not tell; queen of stars keep Black Coyote out happy hunting ground.” “The queen of the stars,” said the scout, “is a woman. She is tender and would have pity for the Indian baby. She will shut Black Coyote out of the happy hunting ground if he lets the papoose starve.” The Indian hesitated. The scout had placed the matter in a new light. “Would Long Hair tell the pale queen of the stars about papoose?” “Yes, Black Coyote will tell Long Hair about the moon girl.” After a time, when the fire had died down and the scout’s pards were silently smoking in camp near by, and the child had gone to sleep in the tepee, its hunger satisfied--while Buffalo Bill and the aged Indian were sitting alone in the darkness, the latter told the story of the “queen of the stars,” the “child of the moon.”