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While the Indians discussed his words between themselves he made a bed of blankets on the floor and said: “I never turn anybody out. A white man is just as good as an Indian as long as he behaves himself as well. You can bunk here.”

The Indians didn’t understand his words fully, but they did understand his gesture, and they smiled and accepted the courtesy, so like their own rude hospitality. Then they all smoked a pipe of tobacco in silence, and at last Wilson turned in and went serenely off to sleep, hearing the mutter of the Indians lying before the fire.

In the morning he gave them as good a breakfast as he had–bacon and potatoes, with coffee and crackers. Then he shook hands, saying: “Come again. I ain’t got anything against you. You’ve done y’r duty. Now go back and tell your chief what I’ve said. I’m at home every day. Good day.”

The Indians smiled kindly, and drawing their blankets over their arms, went away toward the east.

During April and May two or three reconnoitering parties of land-hunters drifted over the hills and found him out. He was glad to see them, for, to tell the truth, the solitude of his life was telling on him. The winter had been severe, and he had hardly caught a glimpse of a white face during the three midwinter months, and his provisions were scanty.

These parties brought great news. One of them was the advance surveying party for a great Northern railroad, and they said a line of road was to be surveyed during the summer if their report was favorable.

“Well, what d’ye think of it?” Wilson asked, with a smile.

“Think! It’s immense!” said a small man in the party, whom the rest called Judge Balser. “Why, they’ll be a town of four thousand inhabitants in this valley before snow flies. We’ll send the surveyors right over the divide next month.”

They sent some papers to Wilson a few weeks later, which he devoured as a hungry dog might devour a plate of bacon. The papers were full of the wonderful resources of the Jim Valley. It spoke of the nutritious grasses for stock. It spoke of the successful venture of the lonely settler Wilson, how his stock fattened upon the winter grasses without shelter, etc., what vegetables he grew, etc., etc.

Wilson was reading this paper for the sixth time one evening in May. He had laid off his boots, his pipe was freshly filled, and he sat in the doorway in vast content, unmindful of the glory of color that filled the western sky, and the superb evening chorus of the prairie-chickens, holding conventions on every hillock. He felt something touch him on the shoulder, and looked up to see a tall Indian gazing down upon him with a look of strange pride and gravity. Wilson sprang to his feet and held out his hand.

“Drifting Crane, how d’e do?”

The Indian bowed, but did not take the settler’s hand. Drifting Crane would have been called old if he had been a white man, and there was a look of age in the fixed lines of his powerful, strongly modeled face, but no suspicion of weakness in the splendid poise of his broad, muscular body. There was a smileless gravity about his lips and eyes which was very impressive.

“I’m glad to see you. Come in and get something to eat,” said Wilson, after a moment’s pause.

The chief entered the cabin and took a seat near the door. He took a cup of milk and some meat and bread silently, and ate while listening to the talk of the settler.

“I don’t brag on my biscuits, chief, but they eat, if a man is hungry enough. An’ the milk’s all right. I suppose you’ve come to see why I ain’t moseying back over the divide?”

The chief, after a long pause, began to speak in a low, slow voice, as if choosing his words. He spoke in broken English, of course, but his speech was very direct and plain, and had none of those absurd figures of rhetoric which romancers invariably put into the mouths of Indians. His voice was almost lion-like in its depth, and yet was not unpleasant. It was easy to see that he was a chief by virtue of his own personality.