The Black Partridge, like most of his race, could sleep anywhere, at any time, and for as long as he chose. He had elected to wake at the end of a half-hour, and he did so on the moment. Sitting up, he gently placed the still slumbering Sun Maid upon the ground and moved forward to the fire. While he ate the food she had provided for him, Wahneenah continued standing near, but a little behind him; ready to anticipate his needs, and with a humility of demeanor which she showed toward no other person. Gaspar watched the pair, wondering if they could really be of the same race which had destroyed his childhood's home, and now again that second home of his adoption--the Fort. He liked, and was impelled to trust them both, and was already learning to love his foster-mother. But when they began to converse in their own dialect, and with occasional glances toward himself and the sleeping Kitty, the native caution of his mind arose, and made him miserable. He remembered a byword of the Fort: "The only safe Indian is a dead one"; and with a sudden sense of danger leaped to his feet and ran to bend above the unconscious maid. "If you harm her, I'll--I'll--kill you!" he shouted fiercely. Wahneenah looked amazed, but the Black Partridge instantly comprehended the working of the boy's thoughts, and a smile of satisfaction faintly illumined his sombre features. "It is well. Let every brave defend his own. The Dark-Eye is no coward. His years are few, but he has the heart of a warrior and a chief. He must begin, at once, to learn the speech of his new tribe. He that knows has doubled the strength of his arm. Draw near. There is good and not evil in the souls of the chief and his sister. We are Truth-Tellers. We cannot lie. We have pledged our faith to the Dark-Eye and the Sun Maid--though she needs it not." The sincerity and admiration in the Indian's eyes compelled the lad's obedience; and when, as he stepped into the firelight, the chief indicated that he should sit beside himself, and also nodded to Wahneenah to take her own place opposite, his heart swelled with pride and ambition. So had the white Captain trusted and counselled with him. He had been faithful through all that dreadful day of massacre, and he had felt the man's spirit within his child-body. Now again, a commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him, and some sort of wisdom--even though so young--else they had paid him no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes shone with the exultation that thrilled him. "Let the chief pardon the child--which I was, but a moment ago. I am become a man. I will do a man's task, now and forever. If I suspected evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already."