"Just what it is," answered his cousin. "See, she has drawn it in pictures, for you know that's the only way Indians can communicate their ideas to each other. Here is what she means to stand for our camp, with four of us sitting around a fire, two being men and the others women, for they have skirts. Then you can see the last two creeping away on their hands and knees. And here they come into what I guess must be an Indian village." "How easy to understand what she wants us to know," declared Roger, much struck by the manner in which the old squaw had left word that she and the little Indian girl were even then on their way to the village where they belonged. "I thought something like this might happen," Dick said, presently, "when I saw the squaw hiding small pieces of meat last night, instead of eating them herself, hungry though she was. She meant to keep them for the child. A warrior, or an old squaw, may be able to go without a bite for days, but not a child." Roger folded his blanket, and stowed it away, after which he went back to the little blaze he had started, saying in a humorous way: "Well, anyhow we can have our meat cooked as we want it this morning, and not half burned in the Indian style; and that's worth something;" at which remark his comrade laughed. "The chances are we'll never know just who old Karmeet was, or the pretty little dark-faced girl with her," Roger observed later, while they were eating their frugal meal. "Dove Eyes, she said her name was; and perhaps it was all right, though I never yet saw a turtle-dove with such black eyes; did you, Dick?" But Dick's mind was already wrestling with a weightier problem. He had to map out the day's march and figure on whether they would be apt to strike the river by still heading due north. Roger was already questioning in his mind whether they had not better turn somewhat toward the northeast, so as to make doubly sure; but as yet he had not dared speak his thought aloud. But after all, it looked as though these things were ordered for the best. Supposing they had never left the bank of the Missouri, what would have been the fate of Karmeet and little Dove Eyes? Surely there must be some Power that regulated all such affairs; and even this wandering on their part had been for a purpose. As they rode on that morning they gradually left the timber behind once more, and found it only in scattered _mottes_. Roger was wavering in his belief, but Dick never allowed himself to doubt that, sooner or later, they must come upon the river again, and possibly many miles above the spot where they had left it. He himself had been figuring it out, and reached the conclusion that there was a tremendous bend above the place of their turning aside to make a "cut-off;" and that, when they were able to again look upon the current of the river, they would have saved possibly a hundred miles of territory.