They went down to the blacksmith's shop, and while Jack turned the handle of the grindstone, Hugh ground the knife and afterwards whetted it on the oil-stone until its edge was keen. "'Pears to me," he said, "that this is a pretty good knife. I expect your uncle bought it for you! Most young fellows that come out here carry a dirk knife with a big bone handle and a guard, that ain't no earthly use except in a fight, and they don't expect to fight; they expect to use the knife to butcher with. What you want is just a common skinning knife, such as a butcher uses--what you've got here. Now put it back in your sheath, and if we have any luck to-morrow, you'll have a chance to try it." When they had left the shop and walked up to the house, and Hugh had seated himself on the ground in the sun, and Jack had thrown himself down beside him, the boy said: "Hugh, you spoke the other day about the Pawnees, and said you had seen them and had some friends among them. I wish you'd tell me about them. I've read about them in Cooper's novels. Don't you remember that Leather Stocking when he got very old lived among the Pawnees, and had the young chief Hard Heart, for his son. He must have been a splendid man. I remember the description of the fight, when he killed the Dakota chief. It was fine." "Well," said Hugh, "I never knew any of them people; likely they were before my time, but the story you read was likely true, for them Pawnees has surely killed plenty Sioux. I expect there's nothing a Pawnee likes better than to get at the Sioux. I have seen quite a few Pawnees in my time, and I've stopped some in their villages, and they're good people, no mistake about that. They are kind, and they give you the best they've got; and they're brave. I don't want to be with better people. Some of 'em helped me out of a bad fix once, and I ain't never forgot it. That's the time I saw the prettiest horse I ever looked at. It was while I was scouting up at the end of the track that I saw him. He belonged to an Indian,--Sioux or Cheyenne, I expect--anyhow they were hostiles, and they chased me, and if I had had far to go, I expect they'd have caught me. They might have done so anyhow if it hadn't been for them Pawnees.