“You have nothing to fear from me,” Hawk said. “Tell your father to come out where I can see him.”

“He can’t. He is wounded, a very bad wound in his side. I pulled him back to hide behind the bushes when I heard you coming. I thought you were one of the men that attacked us.”

“What kind of wound?” Hawk asked, not entirely ready to believe the Blackfoot boy’s story.

“They shot him with a gun,” the boy said, “and left him for dead. They shot at me, but I ran in the trees.”

“I might be wrong,” Hawk said in English, “but I reckon you sound like you’re tellin’ the truth.” In the Blackfoot tongue again, he said, “Let me look at him. Maybe I can help.” He rode across the stream, eased the hammer back down on his rifle, put it back in the saddle sling, and dismounted. Just in case he was getting played, he rested his hand on the Colt on his side. He soon saw that the boy was in earnest. Looking helplessly up at him, the boy’s father was lying on his back, holding a bandanna tightly against his side in an effort to slow the bleeding from a gunshot wound.

As Hawk bent over him and gently moved the Indian’s hand from the wound, the suffering man’s eyes suddenly became wide open and he uttered one word. “Hawk?”

Taken by surprise, Hawk did not respond immediately. A picture of the little goblinlike man the Quaker survivors had called Frog came to mind. He wondered if the wounded man was commenting on the feather in his hat, like Frog had. “Yes, I am John Hawk,” he said, bringing a weary smile to the man’s face.

“Hawk, friend of Blackfoot,” the man said faintly. “Swift Runner,” he said to the boy, “Hawk is friend of Blackfoot.” He closed his eyes as if in peace, alarming the boy.

Hawk felt for a pulse and told the boy his father was just resting. He was not dead. “Swift Runner, is that your name?” The boy nodded. “Who shot your father?”

“Two white men,” Swift Runner replied. “They waited in ambush and shot my father and shot at me. Then they took our horses.” He studied Hawk’s face as the tall scout made a bandage from an old sheet he carried for that purpose. “I pretended I was hit, then when they were chasing our horses, I got up and ran.”

“You’re lucky to have gotten away, if it’s the two men I’m thinking about,” Hawk said slowly, thinking before forming his words. It had been some time since he had talked in the Blackfoot tongue. “You speak any white man talk?” he asked in English. When Swift Runner nodded, Hawk asked, “What is your father’s name?”

“He is Black Elk,” the boy replied, also in English.