Together the two boys returned to the fort. Neither of them spoke until they entered within the stockade, where the men of the settlement were assembled listening to Sam Oliver's dramatic description of the events which had just taken place. The sight of the hunter seemed to revive the sorrow of Henry, as Peleg henceforth called the young stranger, and bring back recollections of his own, unwilling treachery to the family which had been kind to him since the time of his adoption into the tribe. However, Peleg did his utmost to shield his friend, to whom his heart went out in strong sympathy. "What you goin' to do with your friend?" laughed Sam as he spoke to Peleg when the group at last scattered. "I am going to take care of him," replied Peleg quietly. "Make a pet of him, are you? The next rattler I find or the next wolf's cub I run across I will bring back to you, lad, and let you make a pet of that, too. The only trouble is that a rattlesnake is kinder at heart than an Indian." Peleg shook his head but did not reply to this statement of the hunter. "It is true, what I am tellin' you," continued Sam, as if somehow he was striving to justify himself. "It's got to be extermination. Either you kill the redskins or they will kill you. There isn't room for both in the same land. They are trying to kill us off, and I am not one to sit down quietly and invite them to bring their tomahawks and brain me. If I can get the drop on them before they can get it on me, that's all to my advantage." "I think Henry feels----" began Peleg. "Henry? Who's Henry?" broke in Sam Oliver. "That's the name I have given this boy. He told me what his name was in Shawnee, but I could not quite get it. It sounded like Tontileaugo, and I offered to call him Tonti for short but he didn't like that." "You will live to regret the day you ever took him in," warned Sam. "But he is a white boy," persisted Peleg. "Born white, but raised an Indian. It doesn't make much difference where a man is born. He grows to be like what he sees and is used to. He has been brought up to look at things through Indian eyes and he thinks Indian thoughts. You will find he will play you false before you are done with him." "I shall have to take my chance as to that," said Peleg. "Daniel Boone has told me to try to do something to help somebody every day. He told me to start out with that in my mind the first thing every morning." "You are makin' a mistake, lad," said Sam Oliver more quietly. It was plain to Peleg that the old hunter was convinced that what he said was true, and there had been many experiences along the border to justify him in his conclusion. What Sam Oliver had been unable to comprehend was that, much as the methods of the Indians in their warfare were to be condemned, they still were fighting for the protection of the lands which they believed to be their own.