That morning I had not forgotten to sling on my telescope before leaving camp. I got it out, then took a good look at the men, and said to Pitamakan, "They don't appear to be a war party; they are all old men, and some have large packs upon their backs!" "Ha! It is well-planned deception, but I shall take no chances with them. I am sure that the brush behind them is full of warriors!" Pitamakan replied. I somehow believed that for once he was mistaken, and when a moment later the five men started toward us, all making the peace sign and singing a strange, quaint, melancholy song, so weird, so strangely affecting, that it almost brought tears to my eyes, Pitamakan himself said, "I was mistaken! They are men of peace! I believe that they are men of the Earth-Houses People." We met the strangers at the foot of the slope. They continued their quaint song until we were face to face with them; then their leader, first making the sign that he was one of the Earth-Houses People, as the Blackfeet call the Mandans, embraced me and Pitamakan, and so did the others, each in his turn. "We are glad to meet you this good day," said the leader to me in the sign language. "We have often heard about you. We know that you are the Fox, the young relative of Far Thunder. We know that your companion is the young Pikuni, Running Eagle. We have come a long way to see and talk with Far Thunder. His camp is close by, there where the two rivers meet, is it not? Yes? We are glad!" "Our hearts are the same as yours," I replied. "We are glad to meet you this good day. Just up there we have killed an elk. Wait for us until we have butchered it and loaded the meat upon our horses; then we will go with you to Far Thunder." The old leader signed his assent to the proposal, and Pitamakan and I hurried back up the hill to our work. We were not long at it, taking only the best of the meat; then I told Pitamakan to hurry on ahead and notify my uncle of the Mandans' coming, so that he could meet them with fitting ceremony at the barricade. I then rejoined the visitors, leading my horse and walking with them, and in the course of an hour we were greeted by my uncle at the passageway into camp. One after another they embraced him; then he signed to them that his lodge was their lodge, and he led them into it, where Tsistsaki greeted them with smiles and turned to the big kettles of meat and coffee that she was cooking for them and broke out a fresh box of hard bread.