They stole back, remembering to be very quiet in order not to awaken Gramps and Granny, and sat on the wagon tongue. Pete lighted his pipe, and when the match flared it illumined his strong face. For the first time Cindy found herself thinking of it as a young face, even though Pete must be almost thirty. Cindy said eagerly, "Tell us about Oklahoma." "There now, young lady," Pete's grin was felt rather than seen, "I've already told you at least six times." "Please!" begged Cindy, who had an almost passionate interest in this new land that was to be her home. "Mindy hasn't heard the story." "Do you want to hear it, honey?" Pete asked. "I'd love to," Mindy said. Pete sat down with his back against the wagon wheel, rested his head on his hands, puffed solemnly on his pipe, and after a moment said, "Shall we begin with the Indians?" "Yes." "Well, though there were some ancient peoples in Oklahoma, the first tribes which we ordinarily think of as Indians were the Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahoes, and such. They were all warlike and for the most part depended on hunting. There was very little of any kind of farming. But there were never so many of these tribes that Oklahoma was what you might call crowded. It was a vacant land." The youngsters remained silent, waiting for Pete to go on. After a moment, he did. "Oklahoma came to us with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. But in those days, to anyone east of the Mississippi, Oklahoma seemed as far away as the moon seems now. Few people imagined that it would ever be any good, and almost nobody wanted to go there. In fact, very few people even knew it existed." "What's 'Oklahoma' mean, Mr. Brent?" Alec broke in. "It's a Choctaw Indian word meaning 'red people.' Now there weren't so many white men west of the Mississippi, but there were a lot of them east of it. There were also a lot of Indians there. What happened is what usually happened when red men crowded white; the white men wanted the land." "Wasn't that selfish?" Mindy asked.