Roger's last act, after again shaking the hand of the chief, was to pass over to where the old squaw was standing, a smile on her broad brown face, and take her hand in his, as though he would try to express his gratitude; after which he bent down and kissed the little Indian girl who had learned her first words of English from him, while seated at their lonely camp fire that night in the timber.
He would often remember Dove Eyes, and her eagerness to learn to speak the language of the palefaces.
Thus it was that the four went out of the Sioux village unharmed, even honored with loud yells that might be taken for the Indian way of cheering. Jasper Williams declared that it was the nearest approach to a miracle he ever expected to see in all his days; and that the kind deed which the two lads had done on that other occasion had been returned to them many fold.
And so the bread cast upon the waters had come back to them after many days. No matter how long they might live, Dick and Roger would always believe that it paid to stand up for the weak, and even risk their lives in defense of the helpless. Only for that little happening what might not have been their fate on this morning that saw them started back toward the Mandan town?
Of course they reached the camp in good time, and great was the astonishment of the explorers when they heard that the boys and Williams had been prisoners in the village of the great Sioux chief, Running Elk, who until then had evinced the most bitter hostility toward the whites, laboring under the belief, which was fostered by the half-breed traders, that they had come to steal away the lands of the redmen.
Jasper Williams gladly signed the paper Dick had with him, in the presence of both Captain Lewis and Captain Clark, who were only too pleased to add their honored names as witnesses.
"I must say," remarked the soldier leader of the expedition, as he shook the hand of each of the boys cordially, after this operation had been duly carried out, and the precious paper carefully placed away in a pocket of Dick's hunting tunic, "that I never did anything with greater satisfaction in all my life, because you boys have certainly shown yourselves to be a credit to your brave grandfather, in taking your lives in your hands, and venturing all the way up into this unknown wilderness, upon the noble mission of saving the homes of your people."