By the time the rope was there, every man in camp was up and out, and the grass and weeds within sight had rifle muzzles pointed at everything among them as big as a human head. "No whoopin' sounded," said Yellow Pine. "This cub was alone. I say, you young coyote, you jest answer my questions now, or I'll tan the hide clean off ye." Two Arrows drew himself up proudly and looked at him in silence, but Pine led his captive on into the fire-light and picked up a heavy "black-snake" whip, for he was justly angry. It was a terrible come-down for the ambition of a young chief. Captured on his first raid and threatened with a horsewhipping. He felt ready to burst, but it was not with vanity this time. "Where's yer band? Where's their camp?" asked Pine, with a significant flourish of the black-snake, but the Indian boy looked him unflinchingly in the face without a sound or a motion. "Speak, now," began Pine; but Sile had finished answering some hurried questions from his father, and he now asked one for himself. "I say, Yellow Pine, didn't I grab him first? Isn't he my prisoner as much as he is yours?" "What do you mean?" "Well, now, I don't want him flogged. He didn't use his knife. You always said it was best to be friends with 'em." "I'd call it---- Jedge, it's jest so. Sile's right. I'd kinder lost my head. Look a-here, redskin, next time you come for hosses you won't get off so easy. I'll unhitch ye now, and let ye up. There now, Sile, shake hands with him." "How?" said Sile, as he held out his hand to the loosened captive. "How?" said Two Arrows, and he said it a little sullenly, but he had been glancing from Pine's face to Sile's and understood pretty well that the latter had stopped the proposed work of the black-snake. "Make him a present of something, Sile," said his father. "Here--give him this." It was a small round pocket-mirror, worth twenty-five cents, but there was no telling what it was worth in the estimation of such a boy as Two Arrows--perhaps a pound or so of gold nuggets, if he had them, or the skin of his grisly bear, after the glory of killing it had worn a little thin. At all events, he was a most astonished Indian. Evidently these monsters in human form were disposed to be friends with him--particularly this red-headed young chief who had proved himself so good a wrestler. All he had ever heard of pale-faces was against believing it, but there was no chance of escaping from the ring of riflemen now gathered around him, and he gave it up. He answered Yellow Pine's questions by signs only, until something he said brought an exclamation from the old miner Jonas. "Nez Perce! He's a Nez Perce, Pine. I know their lingo. He can talk some English, too. He needn't play 'possum any longer."