Who shall try to make known the emotions which stirred that savage heart? He had often turned in scorn from the words of the good missionaries who had come to his country; but there was something in the faith of the sweet child which touched his nature as it had never been touched before. Having set the little one on her feet, the Sioux stepped across the main room to the window from which most of their observations had been made on that floor. Melville followed him, and noticed that the smoke had vanished, so that the sentinel on the hill was in sight again. Red Feather thrust his hand through the windows, so that his fingers projected slightly beyond. This was done to ascertain the direction of the wind. "Oogh!" he muttered, with a curious expression on his countenance "_wind blow oder way!_ Great Spirit hear what pappoose say." "Can it be possible?" asked the awed Melville. There was no doubt of it; the slight breeze, which had been coming directly from the barn toward the house had changed, and was now blowing in exactly the opposite direction. The chief and the youth passed into the smaller apartment which was nearest the chimney. The former pressed his ear against the logs to help his hearing. Had they caught the flames from the barn, which was still burning furiously, he could not have failed to detect the fact. A moment's attention told him that up to the present the building was safe. But it was not in the nature of things that the Sioux should refrain because their first effort failed. They were not the ones to give up on a single trial. Several noteworthy things took place during the latter part of this eventful afternoon. First of all, there was such a decided lowering of the temperature that a fire would have felt comfortable to the occupants of the building. It looked indeed to Melville as though one of those fearful storms known in the west as "blizzards" was approaching. This was hardly possible, for it was summer-time, but the plains of Texas and many portions of the west are often swept by what are termed "northers" during the warm season. These winds are accompanied by such cutting cold that people and animals often perish, the suddenness of the visitation shutting them out from securing refuge. Red Feather offered his blanket to Dot, but she shook her head. "It's too dirty," she said, noticing the soot which the owner did not seem to mind; "I can use a blanket from the bed, for mamma did not take them all with her." Had Melville suspected the thought in the mind of his little sister, he would have checked its utterance through fear of offending the chieftain, but there was no need of that: one of the impossibilities was for Dot to hurt his feelings. The next most interesting event was the second failure of the Sioux to set fire to the house. This was singular, for there seemed no reason why they should not have succeeded with such facilities at command.