“Boy,” he stammered. “I see. What boy? Oto?” Little White Osage shook his head. “Missouri?” Little White Osage shook his head. “’Maha?” Little White Osage shook his head more vigorously. “What tribe, then?” Little White Osage struggled hard to reply in that language. But his throat closed tight. The young warrior was so handsome and so kind, and the broad warrior was so homely and so alert, and he himself was so small and so full of hopes and fears, that he choked. He could not speak at all. “See what you can make out of him, Pat,” bade the young warrior. “He seems afraid of me. But he understands English.” “Faith, now,” drawled the bold warrior, “sure, mebbe he’s wan o’ them Mandan Injuns, from up-river. Haven’t they the eyes an’ complexion same as a white man?” And he addressed Little White Osage. “Mandan?” Little White Osage again shook his head. “Well, if you’re not Oto or Missouri or ’Maha or Mandan, who be ye? My name’s Patrick Gass; what’s your name?” The throat of Little White Osage swelled. He strove――and suddenly out popped the word, long, long unused. “Kerr.” “What?” “Kerr――white boy.” “Holy saints!” exclaimed Patrick Gass, astonished. “Did you hear that, George, lad? An’ sure he’s white, an’ by the name o’ him Irish! Ye’ll find the Irish, wherever ye go. An’ what might be your first name, me boy? Is it Pat, or Terry, or Mike?” That was too much talk all at once, for Little White Osage. The man called George helped him out. “How can he understand your villainous brogue, Pat! Let me talk to him.” And he invited, of Little White Osage: “Kerr, you say?” Little White Osage nodded. “You are white?” “Yes.” “Where’d you come from?” “Oto.” “Where are you going?” A boldness seized upon Little White Osage. “You,” he said. “Up big river――with ’Nited States.” “Oho!” laughed Patrick Gass. “Another recruit, is it? Does your mother say you might?” Little White Osage shook his head. Somehow, a lump rose in his throat. “Mother?” What was “mother?” That soft white woman, who away back in the Osage village had hugged him and kissed him and taught him these words which thronged inside him, must have been “mother.” “No mother. No f-f-father.” He carefully felt his way. “Ken――Kentucky. Peter――Peter Kerr. Go up river with ’Nited States.” And he managed another word. “Please.” “An’ we set the prairie afire to call in the Injuns, an’ here’s what we caught,” ejaculated Patrick Gass. “Peter Kerr, be it? Likely that was his father’s name, an’ he’s young Peter. Well, what’ll we do with him?” “We can take him back to the boats with us, I suppose,” mused George. “But as for his going on with the expedition, Pat, I don’t know what the captains would say, or the Otoes, either. He’s from the Otoes, he claims.” “Ah, sure ain’t he an Irishman from Kentucky?” reminded Pat. “An’ ain’t we Irish, too? Mebbe we can buy the young spalpeen, for a trifle o’ paint an’ powder.” George didn’t think so.