"Tommy at Fort La Framboise, and I here!" he exclaimed aloud, but speaking only to himself. "What shall I do now?" Then another idea occurred to him. "How do I know this is true?" he demanded, bold beyond discretion in his anxiety and satisfied, anyway, that he and his companions would be killed at the end of the interview. "Perhaps you still have him; perhaps he is dead." But the Indian ignored the reflection upon his honesty. "I tell you the truth, Al Briscoe," he asserted, solemnly. He spoke Al's full name always, as if it were one word, as he doubtless thought it was. Then he lifted the necklace of bear's claws hanging around his neck and held it toward Al. At the bottom of it, between the two largest claws, was fastened a small ring of chased gold, its surface much worn, which Al instantly recognized as Tommy's. "This he gave to me when I left him at Fort La Framboise," said he, "as a keepsake and a promise. And the promise was that he would come back some day, either to stay or to visit us, who are his Sioux kindred." "So?" replied Al. He was beginning to realize dimly that Tommy must have had some very good reasons for his attachment to this magnificent warrior and his family, for he could hardly doubt longer the truth of what Te-o-kun-ko was telling him. The circumstances under which they were speaking together were not such as to tempt the Indian to deceit or apologies; for he was certainly master of the situation, and could either seize or kill Al and those with him whenever he wished. There was a moment's silence. Then Te-o-kun-ko stepped back and laid his rifle across his arm. "You may go now, Al Briscoe," he said; "you and those with you." "What?" cried Al, who had dared expect nothing but death. "You are going to spare our lives?" "You may go in peace," responded the Sioux. "I do it for the sake of Pah-ta-ustah. Tell him so when you see him." He stopped a moment, as if seeking words in which to express some oppressive thought. Then he went on, "Your brother, Al Briscoe, knows not that his father is dead. I lacked ever the heart to tell him. But when you do so, tell him, likewise, that I, Te-o-kun-ko, have none of his blood on my hands. I fired no shot on that day at the place where you lived, though I did enough in all the time we were killing and burning along the Minnesota. My thoughts were on fire with the madness of slaughter, as were those of all who were there. Since then my mind has cleared and I know that the things which we did to the whites in Minnesota were bad; bad clear through. But we have been paying for them ever since; we are paying now, and is not the price even yet great enough? You have killed two, yes, four, of our men and women and children, for every one that we slew over there. You have burned our lodges and our robes and our winter meat; we shall starve and freeze in the time of snows which is soon to come. But it is the price, and we are paying."