"We must hurry," spoke Painted-red. The camp was all aroused. "Someone help Konate." Away they dashed, several riding double, and Konate supported in his seat by a comrade. Behind, in the well, Dagoi sat beside the pool and kept his heart strong for the end that would come by daylight. All that night and all the next day they rode, making northeast toward the desolate desert region of the Staked Plain, on the homeward way across western Texas. No Mexican soldiers would follow into the Staked Plain. When after hard riding they arrived at Sun-mountain Spring, on the top of a high, bare-rock hill near the Staked Plain, Konate's wound had spoiled in him and he could not sit upright on his horse. He was very ill. "I am about to die, friends," he gasped. "Do not try to carry me farther. But go, yourselves; and some day come back for my bones." He spoke sense. Any one might see that he had only a few hours to live, and that soon his comrades would be carrying only a body across the Staked Plain, where the sun beat hotly and water was far apart. It was better that they leave him here, at the spring where they might find his bones. So on the water's edge they built a shade for Konate, with a few crooked cedar branches, and bidding him goodby they rode on, into the great Staked Plain. They expected that they would never seen him again. What happened now to Konate, he often told, and he told it always the same; therefore it must be true. For the rest of the long day he lay there, with the sun beating down around him, and his mind and body very sick from his wound. He was unable to sleep. The sun set, and the air changed to cool, the twilight deepened to dusk; alone on his hilltop he closed his eyes, and waited for the spirit of the tai-me, or Sun-dance medicine, to bear him to his fathers. In the star-light he heard a wolf howl, far off. He listened, and the howl sounded again, nearer, from another direction. Then he knew that the wolf had scented him and was ranging to find his spot. That would be bad--to be eaten by a wolf and have one's bones scattered! Konate groaned. His heart had been strong, until this moment. He had hoped that his bones would be cared for. Soon he heard the wolf, at hand; there was the soft patter of its pads, and the sniffing of its inquiring nose, seeking him out. And now he saw the wolf, with shining eyes peering into the bough shelter where he lay helpless, unable even to speak. That was an agonizing moment, for Konate. But lo, instead of jumping upon him, the wolf trotted forward, and gently licked his wounds, and then lay quietly down beside him.