He sent a challenge to the Arikarees; and for four years he waited, keeping the lance and hoping to use it as he had promised. Finally his heart had grown so sore that he was bursting; and again holding the lance up before the village, he made a speech. "Mahtotohpa is going. Let nobody speak his name, or ask where he is, or try to seek him. He will return with fresh blood on this lance, or he will not return at all." He set out alone, on foot, like Piskaret, the Adirondack, had set out in his great adventure against the Iroquois. By night journeys he traveled two hundred miles, living on the parched corn in his pouch, until he was seven days hungry when at last he came to the Arikaree town where the lodge of Wongatap was located. He knew the village well, for there had been brief periods when the Mandans and the Arikarees were at peace; besides, it was a warrior's business to know an enemy's lodges. The Arikaree towns were much the same as the Mandan towns. Now Mahtotohpa lay outside and watched, until at dusk he might slip through between the pickets, and seek the lodge of Wongatap. He was enveloped in a buffalo robe, covering his head, so that he would be taken for an Arikaree. He peeped through a crack in the Wongatap lodge and saw that his enemy was getting ready for bed. There he was, Wongatap himself, sitting with his wife in the fire-light, and smoking his last pipe. Pretty soon, as the fire flickered out, he rapped the ashes from his pipe, his wife raked the coals of the fire together, until morning; and now they two crawled into their bunk. Hotly grasping his lance, and surrounded by the enemy, Mahtotohpa delayed a little space; then he arose and boldly stalked into the lodge and sat by the fire. Over the coals was hanging a pot of cooked meat; beside the fire were the pipe and the pouch of red-willow smoking tobacco, just as left by Wongatap. Amidst the dusk Mahtotohpa ate well of the cooked meat; and filling the pipe, smoked calmly, half lying down, on one elbow. "Who is that man, who enters our lodge and eats of our food and smokes of our tobacco?" he heard Wongatap's wife ask. "It is no matter," Wongatap replied. "If he is hungry, let him eat." That was right. By Indian law a person in need may enter any lodge, and eat, and no questions shall be asked until he has finished. Mahtotohpa's heart almost failed him. Had that not been the killer of his brother, he would only have left a challenge, and gone away. But he thought of his brother, and his vows, and his heart closed again. When his pipe was smoked out, he laid it aside, and gently stirred the fire with the toe of his moccasin, for more light. He dared to wait no longer. On a sudden he grasped his lance with both hands, sprang up and drove it through the body of Wongatap, in the bunk.